Fake Hipsters
by SekritOMG
Summary: You can take Stan out of South Park, but you can't take the South Park out of Stan. College slash.
1. Chapter 1

You know, generally I would spend another year stressing about this story before posting it, because I've only got seven chapters and lord _knows_ I don't need another incomplete story on my hands. But, hey, I'm bored.

This is an attempt at writing short chapters, by the way.

* * *

It was going to be the warmest Christmas break in his memory, but Stan was still pissed. His flight to Denver was _only_ delayed by four hours. "That's what you get for flying back on Christmas Eve," his mother told him over the phone. This pissed Stan off, and he regretted calling his mother to pass the time. He was the sort of person who couldn't wait at airports without draining the battery on his phone, and he'd already burned through half of his friends.

So he paced up and down the terminal, listening to Postal Service songs on his iPod nano, which was an early Christmas gift from Loren. It came preloaded with a few different playlists, which struck Stan as annoying, because what if he didn't want the stupid iPod? What if he'd like to return it and apply the $200 to a new MacBook? And it was blue, which was hideous, and when he'd opened it and kind of gaped stupidly because he didn't know what to say, Loren had smiled a very puerile smile and exclaimed, "Just like your eyes!" And topping off the nauseous upset of this situation was the engraving scratched into the back, _Happy Xmas Baby! 3 Loren_. Stan ran his fingers over it as he trudged past gate K14 … K12 … K10 … down to gate K2, and then he spun around and headed back past K4, K6 … all the way back to K14. He had been doing this on repeat since he shut the phone on his mother 40 minutes ago.

As he walked by another McDonalds, he felt a man jab him in the shoulder. Stan pulled out his little earphones in a daze and said, "Excuse me?"

"Your phone," the guy clarified. "I think your phone is ringing."

Indeed, his phone was ringing, or rather it was mooing, so he nodded at the man in thanks and slipped the thing out of his pocket, not looking at the caller because he didn't have a screen on the front, and assumed it was his mother calling him back to hassle him about hanging up on her.

"What?" he said shortly, trying to dodge a stroller that was coming straight at him.

"Dude," a voice drawled. "Where the hell are you?"

"Kyle!" Stan cried out in surprise. "Oh my god, my flight is so delayed. I've been at the fucking airport for like three hours."

"Sad," Kyle replied. "Why didn't you leave or something?"

"I don't know, I figured I could wait it out." Stan sighed. "How wrong I was."

"What have you been doing?"

"Wandering around the terminal. Went to Starbucks. Used the bathroom a couple of times."

"I was wondering what kind of action you could get at the Chicago airport."

"No, not like that. Who do you think I am?"

"It's perfectly innocent."

"Yeah, until they arrest you," Stan pointed out. "I don't go looking for anonymous sex."

"Whatever."

"Did you call for a reason or something?"

"Actually, yes," Kyle replied. "What are you doing on Saturday night?"

"I don't know," Stan admitted. "That's the day after Christmas. What are you doing?"

"That same thing you're doing."

"And that would be…"

"Going to Butters' party," Kyle said firmly. "We are going to Butters' party."

"Butters is not having a party," Stan scoffed. He paused. "Wow, I never thought I'd say 'Butters' and 'party' in the same sentence, but here we are."

"Yeah, no, he's having the whole grade. Cartman talked him into it."

"Bullshit. I thought Butters was over Cartman."

"Well, you know." Kyle paused. He cleared his throat. "You can never really just _get over_ someone."

Stan swallowed hard and began to sweat. "Oh, dude," he lied quickly. "My flight is boarding now."

"Do you still want me to pick you up from the airpo—"

"No, it's fine," Stan babbled. "My dad can do it, it's fine."

"But Stan, I like—"

"See you in two days," Stan spat out. "Bye now."

He could still hear Kyle saying, "Stan," as he flipped the phone shut.

Collapsing into a chair at the nearest gate, Stan pocketed his phone, and shook his head. He took the iPod back out and resumed the song he'd been listening to on Loren's _Christmas Break_ playlist. All last night, the only thing he'd heard was, "Oh, baby, I'll miss you. You'll call me every day, right? I don't know if I can survive a month without you." Stan snorted at the memory, because it was ludicrous — Stan spent all of finals week bracing himself, getting ready to dump like he'd never dumped before, and then just as he was getting ready to lower the knife, _bam_, iPod. Stan felt so sheepishly stupid following this that all he could do was pretend that his gift was on its way. Then, instead of going back to his apartment to pack, he somehow got talked into staying over to watch _The Daily Show_, then Colbert, then before he knew it, Stan was taking his pants off and getting into bed with someone he'd wanted to dump for the past four months. _So what if I can't stand him? _Stan asked himself as Loren was taking his usual post-coital piss. _He's so fucking hot_. And he was.

But he just wasn't Kyle.

* * *

On December 26 of his senior year of college, Stan found himself holed up in his bedroom, getting ready to go out. Since running away to Chicago — the suburbs, anyway — to pursue a degree in journalism, Stan had been back every summer and Christmas since he went away. When he came home, he felt like things had never changed — same friendly faces, same shitty identical houses, same never-melting blanket of virgin snow.

But it would all be over soon. After May — after graduation — Stan doubted he'd return to South Park often, let alone permanently. Sure, there would always be Thanksgiving and Christmas (_Thanksgiving _or_ Christmas_, he reminded himself). But he was young, he was hip, he was (hopefully by the time graduation rolled around going to be) single. Why the fuck would he bother spending the rest of his life sitting around this mountain town for idiots, watching his parents get old and his friends get wasted? There were so many more people to watch get wasted everywhere else.

As he shut the door and started off down the road, he reminded himself of the answer: Kyle. How many times had he walked across town to Kyle's house, which was not very far at all? Even if he hadn't done it at all in the past four months, he was doing it now, and it felt normal. Regular. Right. It was like he had just done it the day before, and the day before that. But he knew there would come a time when he never did it. Would there be a time when he never saw Kyle at all? Stan didn't like to think about it, hoped there wouldn't be. But it was feeling more and more likely.

Loren had begged Stan not to go home for break, and for a brief time Stan had been considering that maybe Loren was right — well, right that he shouldn't go home, not right that he should stay at school with Loren. The boys at Northwestern were smarter, thinner, had better hair, gave better blow jobs. The parties were shorter, had better booze, better music, better conversation. But Stan was romantic; he had ideas about missions that needed completion, and there was a very real fear in his heart that perhaps he would never see Kyle again. So he had decided, back in October, when he was sitting in front of his greasy, fingerprinted white Macintosh, fiddling around on Orbitz, that despite Loren's suggestions, he had to go home again. Not for his mother, or his father, or for Cartman or Kenny or Butters. Only for Kyle, and for that fact that he'd been cradling his confession for too long.

So he was home now — walking to Kyle's house, brushing shaggy hair out of his eyes every few minutes. It was snowy, sure, but it was only 30 degrees out, which was practically spring-like. Unlike in high school, when his baggy jeans would become soaked from the bottoms up, he was impervious to snow in his black, skinny pants. It was his thin-soled, canvas sneakers that were saturated, and Stan regretted that unlike down on the suburban campus streets, there was no organized shoveling in South Park. He had been awkward then, less confident and somehow so much older in a way. Stan figured that if this night was to be the last impression he left on South Park, he had better make it a good one. So he'd thrown on his most tailored blazer and his most ironic T-shirt, his skinniest jeans and his rattiest scarf. When he was syndicated, they could remember him as a sophisticated urbanite, rather than the overly sensitive closet-case kid who cried at graduation in a gray suit that didn't fit.

The Broflovskis' driveway was shoveled, and if Stan had driven he might have given a shit about that, but his shoes were already wetter than he remembered them being in recent memory. He rang the doorbell, and then he waited patiently, one minute and two, before the door flew open.

"Hi," Kyle said glumly. He was wearing a pair of cat's eye sunglasses, which he slipped up into his ratty mess of red hair. "I have bad news."

"What, no hello?" Stan replied with disappointment.

"Well, hi." He lunged forward and grabbed Stan in an all-consuming embracing, intimate like a lover's, but without a trace of sexual longing. "They're making me bring _him_," Kyle breathed into Stan's ear.

Stan nodded into Kyle's neck, and withdrew. "It won't be so bad," he reasoned. "He's like what now, 18?"

"Fifteen," Kyle corrected. "He's barely in _high school_." Kyle pulled Stan across the threshold and slammed the door shut. "I'm graduating in June, dude! I hardly need to be _babysat_. It's an insult!"

Stan nodded in agreement, not because he didn't agree that Kyle needed to be very carefully monitored, but because he was suddenly miffed that Sheila (it was always Sheila, every last time) didn't find _him_ a suitable guardian for her precious wastrel of a son.

Kyle dragged Stan into the living room, where his mother was sitting on the couch resembling nothing more closely than an overgrown hen with a bouffant hairdo. Stan giggled into his sleeve, and Kyle gave him a glance of cautionary understanding. Mrs. Broflovski peeled herself off of the couch and buried her face in his chest.

"Stanley," she sighed. "A sight for sore eyes."

"Sheila," Stan said kindly, gently returning her greeting. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm good, can't complain. How is Northwestern?" She sat back down and made eyes at the seat next to her. Kyle gave his usually annoyed eye roll, and crossed his arms as Stan sat down.

"It's good," Stan said honestly. "I've got a residency at the Tribune next semester."

"Ah," she said knowingly, although Stan doubted she knew the paper or the meaning of a residency or what sort of work he'd had to do to get it. "Mazel tov."

"You didn't tell me that," Kyle said.

"Well, I—"

Without waiting for an excuse, Kyle huffed and frowned and said, "Look, Ma, this isn't catch-up time. We gotta go."

"Kyle, bubbe, _please_," his mother sighed in exasperation. "They won't start the party without you."

"Of course they won't," he replied. "Cartman wants Stan and me to help roll the keg in."

"What a lazy ass," Stan remarked, shifting on the couch.

"Did you eat?" Sheila asked her son.

"Yes, I had dinner."

"Did you take your meds?" she pressed.

"Who do you think I am?" Kyle sneered in response.

"All of them?"

"I'm not fucking insane, you know," Kyle said. He gave a short laugh, and sighed as he dragged himself out of the room. Stan, left alone with a woman who he had regularly sort of considered a prospective mother-in-law, began to fidget with his belt loops.

"Kyle says you're dating someone." Sheila tried to be casual, but Stan could clearly see the entrance to a lecture here.

"Yeah," he said without enthusiasm. "Sure am."

"Are you being safe and all?"

"Oh, you know me," Stan said. "I know safety all right."

"All it takes is one mistake, after all."

If there was anything Stan ever wanted to say to Sheila Broflovski, aside from "Will you give me your son's hand in marriage?" it was probably, "You know, I have a mother." But being polite, or at least diplomatic, Stan said nothing except for, "Yes, of course," and then he tensed, waiting for his friend to return. He hoped she didn't cotton onto the fact that he was hiding things and lying through his teeth, not because he felt even moderately bad, but merely because he had no interest in hearing more lectures.

"You know," she continued to blather, "Kyle missed you over Thanksgiving."

"I missed him too."

"We all wish we saw you more often, Stanley. I think it would do him some good if you spent more time with him."

"I'd like that too," Stan agreed amiably, checking his watch. It was 9 p.m.

"He always seems to have these episodes when you're not around. Although I don't blame you. He's no fun to be around during these things, and this last one was a real bitch. I don't blame you for keeping your distance."

"No, it's nothing like that, it's—excuse me?"

"Kyle was hospitalized over Thanksgiving," Sheila clarified. "You didn't know?" Stan shook his head. "I would think he would have told you."

"I'm so sorry," Stan mumbled in his most sincere tone. "Is he all right?"

"He's been worse," she explained. "But he's been better."

"Oh," Stan said, conclusive and miserably. "Poor Kyle."

It was at this awkward juncture that Kyle stomped back into the room, trailed by what Stan initially thought was some kind of butch version of a gothic lolita. It took him a moment to register that this was not a girl, it was in fact Ike Broflovski, who was clad in tight black pants very similar to Stan's, although his were outfitted with a wallet chain. His slick black hair was swept romantically across his face, and he seemed to be wearing eyeliner.

"Mom," Ike sighed wearily. "Kyle won't wear a coat."

"I don't need a fucking coat," Kyle explained. "It's hella warm out."

"Warm enough to jump naked into Stark's Pond I bet," Ike mused.

"I bet!" Kyle replied. "Talk about pregaming!"

"No," Sheila growled, getting up off the couch. She disappeared for a few moments, during which time Ike slumped against the living room wall, and Kyle mouthed something to Stan that he couldn't make out.

Mrs. Broflovski returned, brandishing a hoodie. "Kyle," his mother pleaded, holding out the sweatshirt. "You need a jacket, or a sweatshirt, or something! It's what, 30 degrees out? Think about how cold you'll be!"

"I'm not going to be cold, Ma," Kyle argued. "I'm perfectly fine in a T-shirt."

"Dude," Stan said emphatically.

"Stop being a baby," Ike suggested, "and just wear the fucking sweatshirt."

Kyle squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists. "I'm not cold," he insisted. "I'm not fucking cold and I don't want to be hot! Godammit I'm a fucking senior in college and if I want to go out in fucking below zero without a fucking jacket it's my right!"

"Kyle Broflovski," Sheila hissed, grabbing him by the arm and beginning to twist it into a sleeve. "If you attempt to leave this house without a jacket you will not be leaving at all."

Kyle held his head up defiantly as he let his mother dress him.

"There," she said warmly, folding her arms. "Not so bad, hmm?"

"I hate you," was Kyle's bitter reply. He stormed out of the house, door slamming behind him.

"Remember what I told you, bubbe," Sheila said to Ike, ignoring Stan for the moment. "If he gets out of control—"

"—straight home," Ike filled in. He saluted his mother in jest. "Aye aye, captain lady."

She pinched her son's cheek and gave him a lipsticky kiss. "Have fun."

"Please," Ike sneered, ineffectively wiping his cheek. "If I wanted to have fun, I'd be out with Fillmore instead of trailing Calamity Jane to the kegger to make sure he doesn't stick any forks in any electrical outlets."

"You make damn sure he doesn't." But Ike was already out of the house when she finished this thought, so she turned her attention to Stan. "You have fun tonight," she repeated for him. "We're all glad you're back."

"I'm glad to be back," Stan admitted. "There is no place like home."

"How true," she mused, before giving him a peck on the cheek as well.

Outside, the brothers were both smoking cigarettes, and Kyle was kicking the side of the house and repeating "dammit dammit dammit" over and over again. With his women's sunglasses back on and his short stature, he looked like a girl. Ike smiled at Stan through his exhalation.

"Tell me you're not smoking, like, Virginia Slims," Stan sighed.

"They're Ike's," Kyle muttered, giving the wall a final kick.

"Well, what are you smoking his fag cigarettes for?" Stan asked.

"Kyle doesn't have any money," Ike said smarmily. "He'll smoke what I give him to smoke."

"I see." Stan put his hands in his pockets, and smiled when he felt an arm around his waist. He was no giant, but Kyle was tiny, and Stan felt good about sheltering his little body, lending him some protection. He wrapped an arm around Kyle's shoulder.

"To Butters'?" Kyle asked.

"To Butters'," Stan agreed. They set off into the night, Ike ambling after them.

* * *

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Hi there. I'm so sorry I've now got three active unfinished stories. That's not very responsible, is it? Thank you for reading, though. I appreciate it! I am looking forward to a fic-filled summer.

* * *

There was something calm and non-threatening about Butters' backyard — it wasn't the largest in South Park, and yet it was hardly the smallest. There was certainly enough room for four men to stand 10 feet from the back doors of the house and feel cushioned by intimacy, but not isolated. Stan knew everyone at school would find it insane to linger outdoors drinking beer in cold weather. But to native small-town Coloradans, just below freezing — a balmy 31 degrees if the Weather Channel was to be believed — was like Indian summer, unexpected and delicious.

Unfortunately, his moment of halcyon was broken by a very particular whining.

"Seriously, Kyle," Eric Cartman moaned. "Why'd you have to bring him, again?"

"It wasn't my idea," Kyle repeated. "My mother won't let me out of the house without him."

"Why does it matter?" Stan asked, wiping some foam from his upper lip.

"This party was supposed to be super awesome." Cartman paused to drink some beer, finishing the end of his cup. He tossed it onto the ground before he continued. "Now it's like some kind of high school Canadian party or something."

"It's just one kid," Kenny McCormick countered. He was playing with his lighter, changing the height of the flame and lowering it again quickly. "No big deal."

"Whatever, Kenny." Cartman rolled his eyes. "You're just defensive because you brought your pregnant ho."

"She's not a ho," Kenny replied.

"She's a very nice girl I'm sure," Stan said with a wicked grin. "What's her name?"

"Cumbucket," Cartman said quickly.

Kenny dropped his empty hand — the one that wasn't fussing with his lighter. Wedged between his gym shoes (probably white at one point but now grey from the filth of the city streets) was his blue, thin plastic tumbler of beer. Stan wondered if he wasn't afraid he might kick it over accidentally—Kenny had always been prone to accidents. For that matter, Stan saw a distinct possibility of Kenny lighting one of the too-long ragged sleeves of his flannel shirt on fire with this careless pyromania. That thing was probably made of at least half pre-fab poly-fiber garbage. Same with his puffy vest. "Actually it's Trish," he said weakly.

Stan scratched his head, trying to think of something decent to say to Kenny. "That's a nice name," he concluded. "When is she due?"

"Like a month," Kenny said nonchalantly.

"A month?" Kyle asked. "Dude."

"That doesn't seem right," Stan mused. "That would have made her pregnant when I left in August. And have you even been dating her that long? "

"Well, what the fuck do I know?" Kenny shrugged. "Go ask her."

"I can't go ask her," Stan pointed out. "The door's locked."

"Yeah," Kyle added. "Cartman's got the key."

"I sure do, Jew," Cartman said merrily, sauntering over to the keg. He stuck his cup under the nozzle. "And you're not getting it."

"Who said I wanted it?"

As if on cue, there was a rhythmic slapping noise against the glass door, and all four men looked toward the house to see a blond boy smacking at the pane and mouthing something none of them could hear, but was comprised of two syllables, which Stan wanted to guess was the word "fellas." Kyle gave a cheerful little thumbs up, and Stan shrugged, attempting to at least acknowledge Butters, if not let him out of the house.

"Who the fuck gets doors that only lock from the inside with keys so they can trap their own son in the house?" Kenny wondered.

"Well, obviously Butters' parents," Cartman replied, returning from his sojourn to the keg.

"Poor Butters," Kyle sighed. "What a little trooper." He laughed viciously, and then he sighed. "Um, hey." He tentatively grasped at the sleeve of Stan's blazer. "Do you have a cigarette?" he asked, batting his red lashes.

"Um, no." Stan paused. "Sorry, but, I, um … I quit."

"You _what_?" Kyle shrieked. He shoved Stan, making him spill beer onto the frozen ground. "How come you didn't _tell_ me?"

"Here," Kenny offered. He reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a nearly empty packet. "Enjoy."

"These are all for me?" Kyle asked, eyes widening.

"Sure. All four of them."

"Oh, Kenny!" Kyle exclaimed. He grabbed the man by his sides and squeezed him tightly. "You're the best."

Stan felt his heart seize a little, and he turned away from Kyle and Kenny, only to have Cartman sneak up behind him, and whisper into his ear, "What the fuck is wrong with the Jew?"

Stan swallowed. "You know," he said softly.

"I don't want him fucking up this party by being a crazy bitch."

"Wouldn't that make a party better?"

"I don't want him taking his clothes off."

"He's not going to take his clothes off, Cartman," Stan said, even though he knew this was a stupid promise to make, because who knew what Kyle was capable of? Apparently, Kyle was coming off of some sort of _episode_, mentioned only in passing, really, but still bothering Stan with the lack of information. He very well couldn't _ask_ Kyle anything. This was a subject he had to tread lightly.

"If anyone's taking their clothes off it's me when I'm banging your mom later."

Stan rolled his eyes and gave Cartman a disappointed look; Cartman laughed, and drank some more beer.

"Are you talking about me?" Kyle asked, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Kenny handed him the lighter he'd been fiddling with, and Kyle groped for it. "You know, I have a lighter," he mumbled.

"No," Stan lied. "We weren't talking about you."

"This party is so weak," Cartman lamented. "People'd better be coming. I'll kill that little faggot if they don't."

"Watch it," Stan said cautiously. "Although I guess he is a little faggot," he added as an afterthought.

"How come you can call Butters a faggot and Cartman can't?" Kenny asked.

Stan shrugged. "I dunno," he confessed. "It works like that." He rolled his nearly empty cup in his hands.

"So Butters is a faggot, and you're not?" Kyle asked. Stan looked at the glowing tip of Kyle's cigarette as he took a drag on it, and then he shook his head as he realized that they were waiting for his answer. If there was anything he believed, it was that you really had to internalize this concept to grasp it, and none of his beer-swilling, girl-fucking friends ever could.

"I guess so," Stan said noncommittally.

"Stan is more like a homo," Cartman suggested.

"That works," Kenny agreed.

Stan looked at Kyle, who soundlessly took another drag. Stan badly wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind. He kept dreaming up questions and observations and then censoring himself before he could choke them out haphazardly. He wanted to know why Kyle was wearing sunglasses and had been all night; he wanted to blurt out, "Why don't you ever come visit me?" But every time he opened his mouth he just put the plastic edge of his cup there instead, and let Kenny and Cartman trade the inconsequential details of sex with girls back and forth like it meant nothing to them. Stan knew it meant nothing to him. He wondered why Kyle offered nothing, just stood there smoking.

Upon finishing the dregs of his painfully mediocre beer, he excused himself and went to go get a refill. A brief wind was picking up, but in the mountains, all organic material was frosted over so thickly by late December that nothing was stirred. The inane conversation continued behind him, but halted when he returned.

"Are you coming back after graduation?" Kenny asked him. All eyes turned to Stan with interest.

"I don't know," Stan said easily. "Haven't thought about it." A lie — of course he'd thought about it. He knew that a week ago, his answer would have been, "God, no." But there was something about this town, these people, Butters' backyard, the crunchy snow piled up against the fence (Stan was sure Cartman'd made him do it, probably so people could smoke outside) … it all made him rethink his plans, which to be honest, weren't very developed. He remembered not wanting to come back to South Park, and remembered why, but he couldn't come up with anything to do instead, any alternative plan.

"Well, I'll be here," Kenny announced. "I'm taking the summer off."

"Off from _what_?" Kyle asked. "What year are you, anyway?"

"Sophomore?" Kenny guessed.

"Oh, you're gonna make that ho _real_ happy," Cartman said. "Chicks love a guy who can't get it together to graduate college _before_ they get knocked up."

"At this rate, dude, you're never going to graduate. I mean, who gets kicked out of the Community College of Denver?" Kyle asked. "All you have to do is show up."

"It's hard," Kenny explained. "I have a lot of stuff to do. And you gotta, like … write papers and … stuff." He paused. "You know?"

Stan sighed to himself. He couldn't come back to this.

"Even _I_ can graduate from college, Kenny, Jesus," Kyle announced.

"Well, good for you," Kenny sniffed. "I'm sure it helps that you don't have to work, and haven't got a baby on the way."

"You haven't had a baby on the way for the past four years, you poor fucking hippie."

"I got busy!" Kenny said defensively.

"Yeah, selling crack to 14-year-olds tends to get real busy," Cartman scoffed.

"It's not crack, it's pot, and it's—"

Stan nodded and drank some more beer, tuning out this noise. He watched Kyle drop the cigarette on the ground and smash it into the dead grass with the heel of his shoe. He fished another one out of his pocket and lit it, inhaling in satisfaction. Stan narrowed his eyes and licked some beer off of his lips, focused on Kyle.

"You'd better go easy on those," Kenny cautioned. "They're not cheap, you know."

"I know," Kyle nodded. "I missed this."

"What, nobody smokes at that fucking hippie school of yours?" Cartman asked.

"It's just not the same without you guys," Kyle said wistfully.

"No," Stan agreed. All three men looked at him. "What?" he asked. He realized he hadn't spoken for several minutes, and awkwardly drank some beer.

In the distance, a door slammed, although it sounded muffled. "Fuck, you guys," Cartman sighed.

As he marched around the side of the house, Butters' voice became clearer. "Eric!" he shouted, storming into the backyard.

"Hey, Butters," Stan called out.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Cartman said as Butters approached him.

"How dare you lock me inside of my own house?" Butters asked, arms crossed — in protest, possibly, but also for warmth, as he'd apparently stormed outside in nothing but his black T-shirt, a lick of blond hair swept carelessly out of his eyes to the point that it suck up in an awkward crest above his hairline.

"I'm just having a drink with my friends, Butters," Cartman drawled. "You don't own me, Butters, Jesus."

"You're making me throw you a party for the whole grade—"

"Which is like 20 people, Butters, it's not like a big event." Cartman's unsteady voice betrayed him.

"Big event or not, if you wanna use my house you gotta be nice to me!"

"Butters, how did you even get out here?" Cartman asked impatiently.

"My dad keeps an extra key in his spare underwear drawer," Butters confessed. "Next to his Playgirls," he added quietly.

Stan gave a slight smile at this. "Do you want some beer, Butters?" he asked kindly, motioning to the keg.

"No, that's fine," Butters replied. "I think this party is going to be disorienting enough."

"But you do drink, right?" Kenny asked.

"I drink, sure I do."

"Bullshit, Butters," Cartman said accusingly. "I've never seen you at a party."

"I don't go to same parties as you, Eric."

"There are other parties?" Cartman asked.

"Not everyone likes frat parties," Butters said.

"Oh, that's fucking monkey shit," Cartman continued. "Anyone who's anyone goes to frat parties." He gave his three friends a look of confirmation, and all three of them shook their heads. "Seriously, you guys are so fucking lame. I hate you all; you all suck so hard."

"Frat parties are stupid," Kenny

"Yeah." Stan nodded. "They are."

Kyle just shrugged. "Colorado College barely has frats."

"That is so weak," Cartman sighed. "Well, all right, Butters. I won't lock you inside of your own house anymore."

"And don't you forget to clean up that mess," Butters warned, pointing to the pile of plastic cups and cigarette butts on the ground. "Lord knows what my parents'll do to me if they come back and find out I had a party."

"What a little faggot," Cartman sneered as Butters stomped away. "Excuse me," he said as Stan gave him another look. "What a little _prick_. Can I call him a prick, or does that have some kind of bad gay connotation?"

"Well, I mean—"

"It's like a gendered connotation," Kyle announced. "But it's fine because it's a male one, whereas if you called him a pussy, that would obviously be derogatory, because it's a feminine term, and you'd be insulting his masculinity."

"Well, there isn't much of it to speak of," Kenny chuckled.

"I'm for seriously, you guys," Cartman sighed. "It's very important that this party is super awesome, okay?"

"Why?" Kenny asked. "What's in it for you?"

"Just shut up, Kenny. I hate you, you know that?"

"Dude," Stan said softly, pulling Kyle back from Kenny and Cartman. "Where did you get that shit about gendered insults?"

"What?" Kyle asked. He shook his head, and blew some smoke in Stan's face. Stan pursed his lips, then smiled sheepishly. "Sorry." Kyle uselessly tried to wave some smoke out of Stan's eyes. "Um, my thesis."

"You're going to write a thesis?" Stan asked. "Really?"

"Yes, really." Kyle flicked the butt of his cigarette behind his shoulder. "Why, shouldn't I?"

"No," Stan clarified. "I just … wow."

"It's nothing. I'll just go off my meds for a week and bang it out. You'll see. It'll be good."

"I'd like to read it," Stan offered.

"It's not done."

"I just want to read what you have."

"Okay," Kyle agreed, smiling. He pulled the cigarette package out of his back pocket and smiled at Stan. "I have two left," he said. "You want one?"

"No." Stan shook his head sadly, regretting that he couldn't say yes. "I quit."

"That's right," Kyle remembered, flicking his lighter a couple of times. "That's right, you did." He paused to light his cigarette, but before he could manage, Stan snatched the lighter out of his hand, and lit it for him. "Thank you," Kyle breathed, exhaling softly. Stan tasted smoke on his lips, and he stuck his tongue out briefly to see what else he could taste, but realized he looked stupid.

"I can't believe your parents let you have a lighter," he remarked.

"Well, don't tell them, because they don't know," Kyle confessed. "Ike gave it to me."

There was a pause, and Stan heard Kenny and Cartman continuing to argue, playfully, but loudly.

"He's a pretty cool little kid," Kyle said, calling Stan's attention back. "I just wish he weren't here tonight."

"He's just one kid," Stan said kindly. "I can ignore him if you can."

"Okay," Kyle agreed. "Sounds good."

"Good."

"Dude." Kyle flicked some ash off of his cigarette. "I am going to get _so_ fucked up tonight."

"Me too," Stan said with a smile. "Me too."


	3. Chapter 3

Are you enjoying this story so far? I sure hope so. Let's not waste time, shall we? Presenting chapter three, in which there is a party:

* * *

One hour after the first guest (Clyde, like it mattered) arrived, Stan was well on his way to his ultimate goal of being massively fucked-up. All he'd been drinking was beer, but it wasn't very good beer. He liked Goose Island; he missed the way drinking designer beer made him feel more intelligent. He wanted to credit Loren for that, because his fridge was always stocked with six-packs of brown glass bottles, perfectly cool to the touch. Cartman's beer, on the other hand, was lukewarm dish water, something along the lines of Coors Light, and Stan struggled for a moment to recall the last time he just drank beer to get drunk, rather than to hold while discussing postmodern theory with a girl in leggings in a living room lit by white Christmas lights. Lately he'd been straying toward moderately priced whiskeys, which was something Loren's father had introduced him to over Thanksgiving. Stan had almost forgotten how easily cheap beer went down; how easy it was to get drunk on it. And it wasn't one of those slick, invincible highs, either; he felt a little dizzy, like he just wanted to barf on everyone in the room before the night was over. Instead of talking about news judgment and blogging, he wanted to talk about massive boners and ice skating, bad music and football.

He was in luck, because if South Park was made of nothing else, it was boners, ice skating, bad music, and football. Stan himself liked to talk about his football days as a freshman in high school, but he'd bowed out when he broke his leg ice skating with Kyle one Saturday. He remembered his corduroy pants becoming soaked cold, and the bad music that was ringing in his ears over the pain as he realized his leg was broken, so he couldn't move it, which he'd needed to do to hide his massive boner, which was solely brought on by the fact that Kyle was cradling him, talking to 911 on his cell phone. He was 15 then, and he knew well enough that he was treading on thin ice. But Kyle was reckless, lacked good judgment, thought risky things were brilliant. Being at this party brought those memories to him, and he sighed, trying to forget that Craig was taking his picture.

"It's genius," Craig was saying, as he snapped away in Stan's face. "I just take pictures of any old crap and people look at them. I'm a genius."

"And this site is called what again?" Stan asked. He lifted his cup and was disappointed to find he was fresh out of beer.

"Oh, that's good, keep doing that," Craig prompted. "It's Craig's Pictures of Drunk People dot com."

"Excuse me, what?"

Craig sighed, and lowered his crappy digital camera, and ran a hand down his face. His skin looked raw under his black stubble, which Stan could tell was soon to develop into a full-blown beard. Stan thought a little stubble went a long way, and a beard just went too far. "It's .com," he repeated. "I'm getting like 40,000 hits a month. I got picked up by Gawker."

"Oh," Stan said in recognition. "Gawker." He nodded. "My boyfriend's ex worked for Defamer."

"Nice. Tell me about the boyfriend." Craig snapped a photo of Stan's shoes. "Nice Cons, by the way. Green is definitely your color."

"It is?"

"Shit, yes."

"I always thought it was blue."

Click. "No, blue is such a whore. Everyone looks good in blue." Click. "You got a boyfriend?" Click.

Stan sighed, and leaned against the wall, wondering why he was upstairs with Craig, being photographed outside of the bathroom, when the keg was downstairs, Kyle was downstairs, the party was downstairs … Stan made a face, and Craig snapped another photo. How many of the same picture was Craig going to take? "He's a—" Click. "—drama major." Click.

"Is it serious?" Craig asked. He flipped the camera and played with a few settings.

"No." Craig was … turning off the flash? "Well, he thinks it is."

"No kidding." Now it sounded like Craig wasn't even listening.

"He took me home for Thanksgiving."

"How horrible," Craig mumbled. "He must be loaded."

"_What_?" Click.

"Got you off-guard, nice." Click. "A drama major at Northwestern, not a whore, wants to settle down, ex went to L.A. for Defamer. Trust-fund baby, am I right?"

"I mean…"

"Probably a local?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"And you're not into it?" Craig asked. He lowered the camera and took a picture of the ground. He looked into Stan's eyes, and laughed at his befuddled expression. "I know him." Stan opened his mouth wide, not sure what to say, and Craig playfully smacked him on the shoulder, and gave another cruel laugh: "I know them all."

With Craig blocking the narrow hallway, it was difficult to escape, but as he twisted out of his confinement, Stan nearly fell on top of someone unsteadily coming up the stairs, a head of closely chopped auburn hair looking up at him. Not knowing what else to do, Stan extended a hand, and helped Clyde up the stairs. He looked back and forth between the two other men, wondering if it was time to make a dash for more alcohol yet.

"Clyde, you slut!" Craig cried, pulling the man into a tentative, albeit unnaturally close embrace. Then he shoved him away. "Lift up your pant leg."

"Why?" Clyde asked.

"Just do it," Craig ordered. "Oh, and say hi to Stan."

"Hi, Stan."

"Hey, Clyde."

"How's Chicago?"

"Oh, it's fine, how's Kansas?"

"Can't complain, I—"

"No, Clyde, the other one," Craig moaned. "Actually, lift them both up." Clyde sheepishly crouched down gingerly, yanking up one leg of his khakis to reveal a prosthetic leg, which gleamed in the light of the hallway. "Beautiful," Craig slurred as the flash of his camera bounced off of Clyde's leg. "Absolutely gorgeous. That's like 500 hits right there. Now show me the colostomy."

"What?" Clyde asked, voice heightening. "No way!"

"People wanna see it," Craig demanded.

"No one gets to see it!"

"Fine, be a baby. Come on, Stan." Craig yanked Stan into a room, leaving Clyde to shrug it off and go use the bathroom, or whatever he'd come up here for. "Come here, I'll show you my site."

"How do you know there's a computer up here?"

Craig just rolled his eyes, and snapped on the lights. Stan's eyes adjusted very quickly, and he looked around the room. It seemed familiar, like he'd been in there before, but he didn't remember any room like this upstairs at Butters' house, with a sewing machine and a computer and a jukebox in the corner. But it smelled familiar … like something rancid, animals maybe … guinea pigs? And vanilla yogurt … it dawned on Stan that this was Butters' room, or had been.

"Here." Craig motioned him over to the computer, and Stan shook himself out of the fog of his own memory. Craig pointed excitedly at the screen.

"This is…" Stan said blankly, trying to comprehend what was so fucking awesome about hundreds upon hundreds of uncategorized photos of dirty-looking scenesters getting drunk amid what appeared to be some kind of laser light show.

"This is it!" Craig enthused.

"Oh, yeah. That's awesome," Stan lied. "How many pictures do you have on this thing?

"By my count, like 20,000." Craig was obviously quite pleased with himself. Stan gave him a curious look, with a slightly protruding tongue, very _are we done yet_. "Here," Craig said, snapping a few more. "Yes, I'm a genius. Pictures of you looking at my pictures. It's so…" Craig thought for a moment. "_Meta_." Click click click. "I might be the smartest person below 23rd. No, make that 14th." Click. Stan prayed that this would be the final click of the evening. "I _am_ the Downtown scene," Craig concluded.

"Uh, cool." Stan began to slowly inch out of the room, Craig's lens following the whole way. "Good job, dude. Nice site."

"I know," was all Craig said in response.

XXX

So this was the problem with going to a party without your boyfriend: You had to figure it all out yourself. No waiting in a corner for someone to come over and ask if you're together; no one to leave with you if you decide it's not your scene. Stan didn't know if this was his scene or not, but he marveled at how familiarly foreign these people looked to him. There was a pregnant chick standing by herself by a bookcase, and Stan went over to talk to her because he hadn't met her yet, and Stan figured it would be ungentlemanly of him to go the entire party without introducing himself to the future mother of Kenny's child.

"This party kind of sucks, huh?" he asked her, casually leaning against the wall.

"Yeah," she snorted appreciatively. Her hands were clasped; she seemed anxious.

"Has Kenny been neglecting you?" Stan made sure to use his appreciatively sympathetic smile; women loved it.

"Well, he hasn't said one word to me all night," she admitted.

"That's so like him," Stan mock-gasped. "Do you want me to go yell at him for you?"

"Um, that's okay," she said warily. "I don't really care."

"I'd be pretty pissed if I were you."

"Why?"

"Isn't it kind of rude to take your girlfriend to a party where she doesn't know anyone and completely ignore her?"

"I'm not Kenny's girlfriend," she protested.

"What, fiancée?" Stan asked.

"Ew, no. I haven't talked to Kenny McCormick in four years. I'd rather die than marry that poor piece of trash."

"I'm so confused," Stan admitted. "If you haven't talked to him, how did he get you pregnant?"

"Kenny?" she asked. "I'd never have sex with Kenny. Did someone tell you this was his kid?"

"Yeah. He did."

"Well, he has a lot of nerve," she said coolly. "I'm a surrogate for a childless couple. What kind of crap is he trying to pull?"

"Well, if you're not having Kenny's baby, why did he bring you here?"

"_He_ didn't! _I_ was invited!

"You were?" Stan paused as he nodded. "Is your name Trish?" he asked.

She groaned. "No, you idiot. My name is Powder, Stan. You've known me since I was 6."

He suddenly wished he had a drink. "Excuse me," he said unsteadily. "I need a drink. Do you want one?"

Powder just gave him a resentful look.

_What a bitch_, Stan told himself as he looked around for the bar or something. The keg was outside, he remembered, stepping over a jacket and a scarf.

So he got some beer, and talked to Token about how weird it was to be back in South Park. "I haven't been home in a year," Token confessed. "It's so beautiful out East, I kind of pity the rest of them, stuck here forever, for the most part."

"Yeah," Stan agreed. "It seems like another life when I'm gone." A moment passed between them, and Stan observed Token as he sipped from a leather flask, monogrammed with his initials. "And you come back and it feels like you never went away, like this is where you're meant to be." He sighed, and finished his beer.

"Not really." Token recapped his flask, and slipped it into the inner pocket of his camelhair coat. "My folks just wanted me to come back before I started med school. I figured they're paying for it, I should probably do it for them."

"They miss you," Stan said, thinking of the tense Christmas he had two days ago with his own parents.

"Eh, I don't know. I don't know if they miss me, or the idea of having a kid at home."

Stan crushed his plastic cup underneath his sneaker. "Right."

"Good luck with that internship," Token said, by way of farewell.

"It's a residency," Stan mumbled, knowing well that Token was gone already, couldn't hear him.

He talked to some more people, and he began to realize what was wrong with this party: It was the same conversation, over and over again. People wanted to know what he was up to, who he was dating, if he was going to stay in the Midwest or come back to South Park. He was beginning to confuse the ancillary details he'd gathered about other people: Wendy was still at Berkeley, had a hot boyfriend, didn't know what she was doing. Bebe had transferred from some community college to Scripps, decided she was gay, cut her hair off, it looked horrible. Stan, in his drunkenness, kind of wanted to take her aside, give her his comforting smile, tell her she was very pretty, and suggest growing it out, but he thought better of it, because in all honesty, he couldn't recall having one conversation in his entire life with a lesbian that didn't end poorly in some regard or another. He just didn't get along with them.

Clyde was studying to be a veterinarian, which Stan had to restrain himself from laughing about. He had one leg, and it just seemed insane to him in his current state that someone missing an appendage could be a veterinarian. It seemed amazing, that it had been five years since the accident, and yet it seemed like yesterday, or maybe only a week ago. Had Stan been to Butters' house during that mournful week? Had he and his friends sat in Butters' basement, taking advantage of his hospitality to get high there under the stairs, discussing the suddenness of the tragedy, how Tweek and Red would never show up late to homeroom ever again? Did they even know at that point if Clyde was going to make it?

Something about drinking made these memories stir around in Stan's head like a martini, little nuggets of information long buried coming to light. Life was so fucked up, man. He barely knew what to make of it when he nearly collided with his host, losing a few drops of Coors in the process.

"Oh my god, Butters," Stan slurred, grabbing the shorter blond boy by the shoulder. "This party is awesome. Thank you so much for having it."

Butters blushed. "Aw, you know, it's not really my party, it's Eric's party, you gotta thank him."

"Where is he?" Stan asked.

"I think he's upstairs making out with Kelly Rutherfordminksin."

"No way."

"Well, yes way, I think," Butters said with some uncertainty. "If you wanna know the truth, I think he talked me into throwing this whole party so he could get her here."

"You know him pretty well." Stan finished this bottle of beer and slammed it down on the counter.

"I guess," Butters said noncommittally. "I don't think about it a whole lot."

"But doesn't it bother you that he's upstairs in your room making out with some chick?"

"Well, no." Butters stood up a little straighter, and Stan now figured he wasn't really drunk _at all_, even if he had been slouching, which was very un-Butters-like. "First thing, I don't have a room in this house anymore."

"What happened?"

"My parents, they made my room into my mom's office."

"Oh," Stan said with sympathy, even though he already knew this. "How horrible."

"Yeah, well, I got a room at school, it's okay. I'm just sleeping in their bed 'cause they went to Cabo, so I'm watching the house."

"Why would they go to Mexico without you?" Stan asked. "You're their kid."

"Eh, I dunno, they're weird people."

"And it really doesn't bother you that Cartman is making out in your house with a girl?" Stan repeated, seemingly focused on this point.

"No, I'm telling you." Butters sighed. "I don't care."

"It doesn't bother you just a little that he's…"

"I'm over him." Butters crossed his arms. "That's final."

"Okay," Stan conceded. "Whatever, Butters." He spotted something on the counter, and picked it up. "Is this tequila okay to drink?"

Butters shrugged. "It's not mine."

"Sweet." Stan looked at his toes, and then he punched Butters all friendly-like in the arm. "You seeing anyone?" he asked.

"Yeah, kinda," Butters admitted.

"That's cool. Why didn't you bring him home?"

"I didn't want to." Butters was beginning to sound a little annoyed, but Stan was somewhat beyond the point of being able to detect anything so subtle.

"I'm sure your parents would like to meet him," Stan pressed.

"Yeah, well," he sighed. "They don't really know that I'm into guys or anything."

"Oh my god, Butters, you need to tell them. What are they gonna do? Ground you?"

"Heck, no, they wouldn't ground me," Butters squeaked. "They'd disown me and stop paying for my school and I'd never see them again."

"You gotta learn to just…" Stan paused, and he made a weird swooshing motion with his hands. "Get over it," he concluded.

"No, you gotta learn to just … let me make my own decisions."

"No, Butters, you gotta learn to just hold this bottle for a minute." Stan thrust the bottle of tequila into Butters' hands, and he began to put his hands all over the countertop. "You got shot glasses?" he asked.

"Oh, sheesh. There's a couple in the cabinet."

After pouring two shots, Stan handed one to Butters, and they raised them together. "To Butters," Stan said merrily. "And this great party."

"It's not my party, it's Eric's party, I'm just—" Butters noticed that Stan was already tipping his glass, so he sighed. "Lordy," he droned, downing the tequila.

"Oh my god," Stan breathed. "That was great for a first time."

"I drink. I do know how to take a shot."

"Just great, Butters," Stan continued. "I was a little drunk when I told my parents. Maybe all you need is a little courage."

"For the last time, Stan, I mean it, I'm not coming out to them." Butters slammed the shot glass down on the counter. "So just pour me another one, okay?"

Stan smiled, and did so. "Atta boy, Butters," he said proudly. "You're the best, dude."

XXX

Stan staggered out back; he was looking for Kyle. He wanted to leave; the party was quickly devolving into too many invasive questions, and Stan was lacking the evasive abilities he knew he needed to get out of talking about Loren, or newspapers, or his life in Chicago. He and Kyle always left together; it was just the way it was. Kyle was next to the keg, he could tell; even with his vision a little blurred, no one else would be outside in this preternaturally warm winter weather without a jacket. Come to think of it, no one else hanging around would have that fiery mess of tangled hair like Kyle did. So he staggered up to his friend, slapping him on the back, and Kyle returned the gesture, and pointed at his younger brother.

"Can you believe this kid?" he asked, and Stan didn't want to say anything, because really, until Kyle pointed him out, Stan hadn't noticed Ike. But he saw him now, and Stan took a tenuous grasp of the kid's hand to shake it. "He just drinks like a fish," Kyle added.

"Whoa," Stan said honestly. "That's really cool for a kid."

"I'm not a kid," Ike said crisply. "I'm a machine."

"Whoa," Stan said again. "Being a machine is really cool."

"He is," Kyle confirmed. "He can play guitar."

"_Bass_," Ike corrected.

"Bass, guitar, _whatever_," Kyle said dismissively. "It's all good." He swatted at Stan's behind and began to stumble away.

"Where you going?" Stan called out.

"He probably just has to piss," Ike said dismissively. "This party's pretty gay."

"Heh, yeah," Stan agreed happily. "Butters is totally gay, he throws like the gayest parties, he always has."

"I always thought high school parties sucked ass, but this one's just retarded."

"Aw, no way. Like, everyone's here."

"And everyone's totally lame. Like, there are two pregnant chicks here. What's the point?"

"Chicks like being pregnant," Stan theorized.

"It's not cool," Ike affirmed. "You guys were all so cool when I was little, and now it's like you all went to college and got lamer."

"Maybe you just got cooler," Stan offered. "Things seem better when you're younger, then you grow up and you realize how lame things were then. But you're pretty cool, for, like, a kid."

"Thanks," Ike beamed. "You're pretty cool for a lame grown-up."

"I'm not a grown-up," Stan said dismissively. "Wait, you think I'm a grown-up?"

"Well, yeah. You live in a city, and you work at a newspaper."

"I just got a residency…"

"Well, it's cool."

"Aw, thanks." Stan smiled, and he put a hand on Ike's shoulder. "I remember when you were just a little, little boy. We used to beat on you pretty hard."

"It was okay." Ike batted his eyelashes, which Stan noticed were very fine, finer than Kyle's, although not nearly as long.

"You were just a little bean," Stan continued. "And now you play guitar."

"_Bass_. I am in a band."

"That's cool," Stan slurred. "Bands are cool."

"You're cool," Ike pressed. "What's your boyfriend like?"

"Who, Loren?" Stan asked. "He's okay." He paused. "Actually, I hate him."

"Then why're you with him?"

"Um, it's like … you ever dated anyone?"

"No," Ike admitted.

"Well, when you do, and you will, you're very good-looking … when you _do_, you'll figure out that there's some people you love, and some people you only love to fuck. I just feel so bad about it, he likes me a lot, but the sex is awesome."

"Why's it so awesome?" Ike asked.

"Oh my god," Stan sighed. "I can't tell you that!"

"Just tell me."

"No," Stan said firmly. "You're too young to know these things."

"No, I'm not," Ike insisted. "Trust me, I'm not."

"You really wanna know?"

"Yeah," Ike confirmed. "I really do."

Stan sighed again, and took his hand off Ike's shoulder, only to put his entire arm around the boy's lithe little torso and lean in to whisper, "He's got the tightest fucking ass I've ever had the pleasure of knowing." Stan's breath, moist with beer and some tequila, touched at the rim of Ike's ear. "But don't tell anyone that, okay? Don't tell Kyle that."

"Okay," Ike promised. "I won't."

"I really gotta dump the guy. He's like a vacuum cleaner, but he's, like, sucking out my _soul_."

Ike nodded, as if he knew what Stan was talking about. Stan nodded back, and there was silence for a moment.

"Hey," Ike said sweetly puncturing the silence. "Do you want me to get you a drink?"

Stan looked at the ground, and then at Ike. He didn't know why, or maybe he thought he shouldn't, but the boy's soft smile made him really think he should take him up on the offer. "Okay," he said happily. "Get me a drink, please."

"What do you want?" Ike asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Stan said. He rubbed his hands together. "I think anything is fine."

"Okay." Ike paused. "One anything, coming up."

* * *

I really like this chapter, but if you have constructive criticism, please pass it on. Anyway, after this, the drama ramps up. See you at chapter four! I hope.


	4. Chapter 4

Stan immediately knew two things upon waking in the morning: He was not in his own bed, and he was ill. It was the kind of disorienting wake-up where Stan thought he was in one place, and quickly learned he was actually somewhere else entirely. He thought he was in his comfortable full-size bed back at school, which was actually only a mattress on the floor of a room in a house he shared with three other journalism students. The natural conclusion, then, was that if he wasn't there, he was probably at Loren's, and true enough, there was someone else spooning him. But the way the sun was hitting the wall was all wrong — Loren never slept with the curtains open, and for that matter, the window in his bedroom was at the head of the bed. And here the sunlight hit the closet, which was perpendicular to the foot of the bed. This was all very strange to Stan; in his hung-over sleepy fog he wondered why Loren's room had changed so drastically, and then it hit him that this was not a California king he was lying in — it was a twin, and he was fast beginning to feel some leg cramps creeping up on him. As his thighs began to sting with tension he remembered it was December 27, it was Christmas break, he was home in Colorado, and not in his bed, and someone was spooning him. So, he very gently rolled away from a man's grip, and — no, this was not a man. Was it a girl? No — _no_. It was a boy.

It was Ike Broflovski.

Ike began to stir, began to murmur, and as weird, sick memories came back to him, Stan felt his esophagus finally begin to clog with the Funyons he could suddenly recall eating in Butters' dining room while he talked with Wendy about _Top Chef_. Where had he gotten Funyons? He hadn't brought any with him. Did the Stotches just keep them in the house? That seemed … off. They weren't very Funyon-y people, were they? Well, there was no time to worry about it. Stan tried to get up, but feeling his legs turn gelatinous, he fell to the floor with a thud, which made his head feel much worse. He crawled on hands and knees to a gray trash pail, and vomited spectacularly.

When he was done, he weakly managed to get himself into a sitting position, and raised his head. It wasn't until he brushed his limp hair out of his eyes that he noticed Ike sitting up in bed, completely naked, everything bared. "Hi," he Ike said happily, albeit rather softly. "Awesome puke. You do that often?"

"Uh huh." Stan lunged forward and grabbed at what he thought were his pants.

Ike hopped off the bed, and grabbed them. "No." He sort of gently tugged the jeans away, and though Stan let go and covered his chest uneasily, he looked confused for a moment. So Ike said, "No, dude. These are my pants." It made Stan feel sick again — they wore the same (or very similar) pants. Weird. Gross. Ike tossed the jeans at his bed and they failed to make it, falling against the bed frame with a dull thud. Ike handed him something else wadded up on the floor. "These are yours," he announced. Shaking off some grogginess, Stan put them on.

As Stan fumbled into his jeans — this was no time to bother finding and putting on his underwear — the kid wriggled into a pair of gray boxers. He was grinning in a way that made Stan uncomfortable, although italthough it was useless to blame it all on Ike; the dizzy buzzing in his ears and the fact that the most therapeutic thought he could conjure was his head being split open with an axe to relieve the tension were certainly doing their part in making him feel rather less than well. Hand on his stomach, he curled up on the floor. This was something like those nights he'd spent in high school with Kyle, where they drank themselves stupid and woke up in the morning in the same bed, feeling absolutely deathly. Of course, Stan reminded himself, this was Kyle's younger brother. That made him feel worse again, and he shut his eyes against the vicious cycle that his thoughts had become.

"Hey." Ike pressed against Stan's exposed cheek, and he slowly and unsurely lifted his head again. "Don't go to sleep on the floor, man."

Feeling well enough to speak, Stan spat out, "Why shouldn't I?" The words sounded cottony and they tasted bitter to him.

"Because." Stan felt Ike trying to nudge him into a sitting position. "Not that I haven't enjoyed your company, but you have to get out of here. I mean, my parents might not be up, but Kyle will come home soon, and what then? _You gotta get out of here_."

Stan pushed himself up and shook his head. "Kyle didn't come home last night?"

Ike rolled his eyes. "Don't you remember anything? He split off with to go home with Kenny and Trish, and we came back here."

"Well, obviously!" Stan snapped, although he regretted it, because it made a searing pain go off behind his eyes. He hissed as it faded away all too slowly. "Wait," he said, developing a recollection of some of the previous night's conversation. "Trish. She's…"

"Kenny's baby mama, _yes_, I _know_."

"How do you—"

"We were locked inside together for an hour last night." Ike paused. "Well, her and me and Butters, anyway."

"You think Kyle's okay?" Stan wanted to know. He was now scanning the floor for more of his clothing; the way his nipples were becoming erect in the under-heated room was making him feel uncomfortable, and he wanted a shirt.

"I wouldn't worry about him right now." Stan nodded along with this, because truthfully, he was feeling pretty drowsy. "Except, oh yeah! If he comes home and sees you and figures out you just fucking popped my cherry, we're both fucking dead! So yeah, I'd say you'd better get the fuck out of here!"

Stan felt plenty awake now.

"I _what_?"

"You took my v-card."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, what? You just gave me the most deliciously thorough ass-ramming I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing," Ike said giddily. "Well, it was the only ass-ramming I ever experienced. But it was good."

"Oh, my god," Stan moaned again. "Oh, this is really bad."

"What's so bad about it?" Ike leaned forward. It was awkward, especially since he was attempting to use Stan's crotch for support. At least, that's how it seemed to Stan, until it occurred to him that he was being kissed.

Stan drew away very, very clumsily. "Excuse me." He cleared his throat, peering at Ike through disturbed eyes. "What are you doing?"

Ike wiped his lips. He was still beaming about this whole thing. "Kissing you," he said quite innocently.

"Okay." Stan got up and began to grab at clothes haphazardly, pulling them on without paying attention to whether they were inside-out or even belonged to him at all.

"Yeah," Ike drawled while Stan was hurrying to get himself together. "You really should get out of here before Kyle comes home."

"I, um." Stan paused with his hand on the doorknob. "I think I'd like to go out through the window."

"The window?" Ike glanced over at the window. "We're on the second story."

"Yeah." Stan felt pretty stupid, standing there with his blazer scrunched up in his arms. He realized while Ike was staring at him peculiarly that he didn't know where his scarf was. He didn't want to know. He swallowed. "Can you open the window?"

Ike crossed his arms and made an indignant little face. In spite of himself, Stan thought it was cute — before this morning he thought have found it precocious, but now he found it coquettish, which really disturbed him. "You're not going out the fucking window, Tarzan. Use the door like a human."

"What the _fuck_?" Stan asked aloud as he was pushed down the stairs.

"I'll call you," Ike said before slamming the door in his face. Unluckily for Stan, he stood there long enough for Ike to open the door again and ask, "What the fuck are you still doing here?" Then he blew him a kiss. Then he slammed the door again.

Stan could not recall his last post-coital walk home in South Park. It must have been years ago. Perhaps he was too cold to remember. But it might have been colder, and the walk was short. He was grateful that his keys were still crammed into his front left pocket. Of course his parents weren't up waiting for him. They'd never been the type.

Still feeling physically sick for various reasons, Stan fell in front of the toilet as soon as he made it upstairs. He worried for a brief moment as he was wiping his mouth afterward that perhaps his parents would be woken up to the sound of his puking, but if they said something, they could go to hell — Stan was 22, and he had every right to stay out all night and come home the next day sick to his stomach.

He was mostly just retching at this point, but Stan still felt pretty bad. He tried to brush his teeth, but sticking the toothbrush in his mouth just made him feel worse, so he quit that, and just gargled some water, and then got in bed to sleep for a couple of hours. It was difficult, because the blinds were open — obviously he hadn't been home the night before to close them, but he doubted he would have been sober enough last night to remember to shut the blinds anyway.

He was woken up when his phone started mooing at him. Stan briefly regretted his ring tone, which when he was drunk he found absolutely hilarious, but now he was finding it pretty annoying. He ignored the mooing until it went away.

Then he got a text message.

It was from an unidentified number, but it had a local area code. Sighing, Stan opened the message. _Im horny. meet me home 6 pm? ike _

Stan licked his lips and sighed. He rolled over, and hit 'reply.' _6 at starks. no sex._

It took him 15 seconds to get a reply. _but i need u to fill me again_.

Gritting his teeth, Stan tapped out, _how did you get my #?_

He waited about three minutes to get the answer: _stole it from ky_.

Feeling like that was a good enough answer, or maybe he was just too exhausted to look into it any further, Stan conceded, and sent a final message: _6 at starks. _After confirmation that his text had sent, Stan turned off his phone, and left it off all afternoon.

At 5:50, Stan got out of bed and got ready to go. He didn't care if he was late. He didn't care if he looked good. He slipped on the same pants he'd been wearing the night before, because they were on the floor near his bed, looking comfortable crumpled up there. But as he felt the smooth fabric caress his shins, he suddenly became quite ill with the thought that he'd done gross things in these pants. Actually, now that he had them off and was holding them up in front of his face, they had ashy handprints all over them. What was up with that? He balled them up and threw them in the garbage. He wore his dark jeans with the hole in the right knee, and finished his outfit off with a black T-shirt. If he squinted, he could still make out the traces of _Park County High Junior VaristyV Football XXL_. He knew the back used to say _Marsh_ but now it didn't. It was the cheapest T-shirt in the world, and pretty much his favorite. No one would see it anyway. He zipped a puffy jacket up over it.

He stopped by the front door to tie his shoes, hoping to get out as quickly as possible. No such luck.

"Stanley," his mother called from the kitchen. "It's almost dinnertime. Where are you going?"

"Out," was Stan's curt reply as he tied his sneakers.

She emerged from behind the living room wall without taking a hint. "Your father and I were thinking that maybe—"

"Gotta go," he said loudly, cutting her off.

"Oh, well, when do you think you'll be—"

"Not sure!" Stan shouted as he slammed the door behind himself. Checking his cell phone, he realized it wasn't on, and fixed that. "Shit," he gasped, seeing that he really was 15 minutes late. "Shit," he repeated over and over again as he ran down the snowy roads. It was a little warmer today, like maybe around 35 degrees, and all the way through town (which was only about a five-minute jog), he felt his palms and the spaces between his fingers sweat inside of his cheap knit gloves.

~XXX

Panting as he made it to the pond, he slowed down, and immediately spotted Ike, wearing what he'd been wearing the night before, hands clasped in his lap. "Oh, shit," he said yet again, and he let his slow jog degenerate into a fast, shuffling walk. He saw how pink Ike's gaunt cheeks were, probably from sitting out in the cold, when the boy turned his head to nod solidly at Stan.

"Hey," he said warmly. "I cleaned the bench off for you." And sure enough, all the light, puffy snow had been cleared away. Ike wasn't wearing gloves, and Stan figured his red, raw, moist little hands must be freezing. His own hands began to feel cold inside of his gloves. Briefly, he considered lending them to Ike, but then he thought better of it — offering your winter accessories to someone was a clear demarcation of romantic interest, and, yeah, that was no good. Ike would just have to be frozen.

"We should talk," Stan said, sitting down.

"I'm not much of a talker," Ike confessed. Stan noticed him wiping his nose, which was dripping a little. Generally this sort of thing didn't bother him, but he wanted nothing more that to just wipe the snot away. _No_, he reminded himself. _Too intimate_. "Why don't we go back to my place?" Ike said unsteadily.

"Ike," Stan began. "We're not having sex ever again."

"Oh, no," Ike moaned, although the sharp tone in his whine made Stan think maybe he'd been expecting this. "But I so _enjoyed_ it."

"I'm really, really sorry." Stan coughed. "I think you're a neat kid, but … oh, fuck, this is going to come out horribly no matter how I saw it."

"Yeah, basically," Ike confirmed.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings."

"I know."

"But yeah, listen: I don't love you. I don't like you romantically. We're not in love. I'm in love with someone else. Last night was really a mistake. So let me repeat myself: I do not love you."

"No shit, Stanley." Ike smiled, and he sighed. "I don't love you either."

"You don't?" Stan asked.

"It's like you said last night: Some people you love, and some people you just love fucking. Well, we're not in love. So if that's your only issue … let's go back to my house and fuck again."

"What?" Stan cried. "No!"

"What's the big deal?" Ike asked. "Didn't you like my virgin ass?"

"Yeah, it was fine, but that's not the issue."

"Only fine?" Ike pouted a little. "I gave you my virginity! Oh, cruel Stan." He sighed dramatically. "You're breaking my heart."

"Dude." Stan held up a hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you serious? Because I'm just kind of—"

"No," Ike said pronouncing it clearly. "I'm not serious." He rolled his eyes. "I mean, about everything but the sex. It was really hot. I think we should do it some more."

"No," Stan said firmly. "No no no no _no_."

"Aw, come on!"

"No."

"You can do anything you want to me." Ike waggled his eyebrows. "You'll like it."

"No, I won't," Stan groaned. "I won't, because of the following reasons. One, you are a minor. Two, you are my … _Kyle_'s brother. And three, I am not into you. I think you're very nice, but I'm not into you. I appreciated our time together, but I am not into you." Stan sat still for a moment, wondering what reaction he might get, while Ike just stared at him. "Wow," he breathed in relief. "That was actually pretty easy."

"Mmhmmm. I see. What was that about Kyle, again?"

"What? Oh." Stan wiped his nose. "You're his brother. That'd be weird."

"You want to know what I think?" Ike asked.

"No," Stan said honestly.

"You're in love with _him_."

"What?" Stan asked. "No way!"

"No, yes way. You're in love with Kyle."

"No, I'm not, I'm…" Stan trailed off, and he heaved his shoulders, and moaned. "Aw, I can't lie about this to you. I guess I owe you that much."

"I'm not sure you owe me anything," Ike replied. "I mean, you boned me, and it was awesome. I should be thanking you."

"Aw, really?" Ike nodded to this. "You really appreciate me doing you _that_ much?" Ike nodded okay. "Okay, well, let me tell you this, Ike — what we did is _so_ illegal."

"I know," Ike said. "Whatever. Like I care. I mean, is _that_ your issue? Is _that_ why you won't do me again?"

"Well, kind of," Stan admitted.

"What kind of tremendous bitch do you think I am? You think I'm going to turn an old family friend into the police?" Ike actually grabbed Stan's hands, and even through his meager knit gloves he felt how cold the boy was, despite the fact that he wasn't trembling. "Look, I'll admit, between Sheila the cunt and Gerald Broflovski, Esquire, you'd probably get like five to ten."

"Oh, god."

"Oh, right."

"So, now you're blackmailing me into having more sex with you?"

"What? No! You have a really low opinion of me, don't you think? I'm just saying. I just don't understand how any red-blooded man could turn down sex from an underage boy with a tight little butt," Ike mused. "I mean, I really just don't get it."

"Ugh, please." This conversation was beginning to catch up with Stan, who was now feeling even more ill than he had that morning. Maybe he was still a little bit hungover. Luckily for Stan, he was getting used to the feeling. "This conversation is going nowhere," he said uneasily.

"I know," Ike agreed. "And I told the guys in my band I was missing practice to get laid, too."

"What?" Stan shouted — a knee-jerk reaction. "Who else have you told about this?"

"No one. I haven't even told them any details. And even if I _had_ told them, 'Hey, guys, I'm getting rammed by _Stan Marsh_,' they would have just been all like, 'Who is Stan Marsh?' "

"They don't know who I am?" Stan asked, now a little insulted.

"Well, no, why would they? It's not like you're a legend in this town. People come and go all the time."

"I just thought…" Stan slumped, and let go of Ike's hands.

"You were someone?" Ike filled in. Stan nodded. Ike stood up, and brushed pointlessly at the wetness of his pants. "Look, dude. You're no one here. You're no one anywhere in this world, unless you stop to make a difference to _someone_."

"Dude. I'm still not going to do you ever again."

"Oh, fuck. It was a worth a try, though." Ike made finger-guns at Stan. "Stay warm. See you around." He began to walk again.

"Wait!" Stan called.

Ike stopped and turned. "Yes?" he asked.

"I have a request."

"Oh." Ike pulled a pack of anemically thin cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. "Want one?"

"No, it's okay. I quit."

"Shame," Ike said. He stuck one in his mouth and lit it. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to not tell Kyle," Stan said, standing up. "That would really mean a lot to me."

"Okay," Ike agreed, exhaling some smoke. "I wasn't planning on it anyway."

This caught Stan's attention. "Wait a moment. I thought you guys were close."

"We are," Ike confirmed, exhaling very gracefully; Stan had to admit that Ike did have a rather appealing set of lips, thin though they were. He found himself trying not to stare at them as Ike continued: "Look. The thing with Kyle is ... you don't want to _test_ him."

"I don't get it," Stan admitted.

Ike took another drag. "There's not a lot to 'get.' " Smoke wafted out of Ike's mouth and nostrils as he spoke. "You know how he gets, and I'm not saying he'd necessarily _be_ pissed that we, like … did what we did. But it's just better to sidestep the whole issue. You get me?"

"I think I get you."

"All right!" Ike said a little too enthusiastically for Stan's taste. "I'm not going to tell him."

"Thanks. That would be great."

Ike gave an exaggerated wink, and then he walked away. The smoke lingered in his absence.

* * *

I have to be honest with you -- I've been avoiding logging into this site for two awesome reasons. The most important one is that I keep seeing ads on here with fucking spiders in them. Has anyone else been having this problem? Spiders terrify me! Every time a new page loads I have to cover my eyes. I'm, like, 3 years old. When it comes to spiders.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning wasn't too bright; in the sky hung dense gray clouds, and in the streets carbon slush was drooling toward the gutters. Despite a nervous glance out the window at this unappealing world, Stan awoke feeling sunny.

It wasn't that he had never liked Loren — he liked him fine, even now. His feathery wrists and the way he had the filthiest (and biggest) mouth in the drama department … Stan sighed as he sat up in bed, relieved that it was his own and not some stranger's. Not that Ike was a stranger.

There was one thing he rather appreciated about this whole Ike debacle, if one could call it that. Actually, in Stan's opinion, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. Because if he hadn't drunkenly fucked his friend's — crush's, whatever — brother, maybe he would never have been able to break the draining pattern of sleeping with Loren and then sleeping with other guys and just waiting for him to find out. Stan hated confrontation; the idea of being frank with Loren terrified him. But rejecting Ike had been easy; where he'd been expecting a battle, he found none.

If Loren had just caught Stan cheating, the issue might have been forced. But Loren was kind of dim; his grandfather was on the Northwestern board of trustees, and Stan always felt a little superior for getting into the school on his own merits. A personal statement about growing up closeted and fearful in a redneck mountain town had been worth more to him than his SAT scores, although it definitely helped that Kyle had studied with him late Saturday nights during junior year, because neither of them could manage dates to dances anyhow. As much as Stan had always wanted to choke out, "Well, maybe we should just go together," he knew that the outcome of studying instead of dancing was Northwestern, and he hadn't wanted for a piece of ass for a bit over three years now.

Stan thought of himself as a nice guy — he felt waiting to dump Loren, sparing him that cruelty, was the decent thing to do. It was a workable arrangement, actually — the poor guy was too stupid to ever figure it out, and just stupid enough to be heartbroken if Stan had actually dumped him. Really, what he should have done was refuse to return Loren's calls after the first time they did it, in the bathroom of a bar down on Sherman the same night they'd met at some friend's horrible graduation get-together last May. (Stan did not mention to Loren at any point before or afterward that said friend was actually a former fling, although _that_ guy at least had been smart enough to leave well enough alone.)

The jarring thing about it was that after he'd bothered to return one of Loren's many calls, he'd had a devastating phone conversation with Kyle, who'd reprimanded him in his most strangled tone. "Having unprotected sex in a fucking bathroom!" Kyle kept repeating. "Don't you have any judgment at all? Who knows what this guy has? You could have AIDS, dude, AIDS!"

"Oh, he doesn't have AIDS," Stan had said. "And even if he did, there's very little evidence of being able to get AIDS while topping."

Kyle sounded very hurt when he replied, "Do you know what some people would give to be able to control themselves? To be able to choose where and when to have sex and not just do it with anyone in some fucking bathroom?"

"Like you've never fucked in a bathroom!"

"I wish I hadn't." Kyle had never sounded more sober than when he'd admitted this. "Anyway, I have to go." And after they hung up, Stan went back to writing some conclusion for some final paper about ethics and media and ... he didn't remember. It was ridiculous, to have been in college for so long that he could no longer remember what his paper was on or which class he'd been writing it for.

In the present, he spat out his toothpaste and twisted the faucet knob off. He looked up, and stared his reflection in the eyes. He could do this.

XXX

_Loren:_

_I hope you had a good Christmas. Mine was fine. I would like to be able to say that I miss you, but the truth is, I don't._

_I don't mean to be cruel, but I think it's unfair to keep this relationship going. Our time together has been great, and I can honestly say I've never dated someone for this long, or who seemingly cared for me so much. But we're not compatible, and I don't love you, and I think the best way to show how much I respect you is to just be honest. _

_It's not practical for us to keep this alive, either. You'll be going out to LA in May, and as much as I would like to accept your family's generous offer to share an apartment, you know I cannot commit to moving out there. At this time, I'm not even sure if I should stay in Chicago, or move home. I miss my friends, and I don't know if moving to yet a third place and starting yet a third life would be productive for me._

_I'm very sorry. I'm especially sorry I did this via e-mail, which is perhaps the most graceless way to do it. But when you look back on this, I think you'll understand that it's for the best, and that I'm only trying to protect your best interests._

_Thank you for everything._

_Sincerely,_

_Stan Marsh_

XXX

After Stan had hit "send," he'd actually stopped and just sat there rubbing his eyes for about five minutes. He hadn't wanted to end it with "Marsh," but something made him want to keep it professional, or maintain whatever semblance of professionalism was due to a man whom he'd falsely professed to love mid-coitus on more than one occasion.

_At least you ended it_, Stan thought to himself. _You did the right thing._ He snorted. "Yeah," he said aloud. "Eventually." He wondered if this was a bad sign, talking to himself in his head and then responding verbally. No matter. Getting back into his unmade bed, the one he'd fallen asleep on every night between ages 3 and 18, he reached to the nightstand for his cell phone, and hit speed-dial No. 1.

"Hello?" was Kyle's drowsy greeting.

Stan bit his lip. "Why do you always answer the phone like you're not sure it's me calling?"

One breath. Two breaths. "What?"

Regretting his words, Stan got on with it. "I broke up with Loren," he announced. He felt awkward talking in this position, on his belly with a pillow smashed under his chest, so he turned over, pressing the moist plastic of his phone against his cheek. He realized when he was done adjusting that Kyle hadn't said anything. "Kyle?"

There was a moment of silence. "I'm here."

Stan felt his lips stick together when he opened his mouth to continue. "And?"

"I think that's great. I mean, I know I never met the guy, but…"

"But what?"

"…but, I don't know, you never talked about him in very flattering terms. I really didn't know what you saw in him."

"Me neither," Stan lied. "Me neither."

"Well, so now that's over with? How'd he take the news?"

"News? Oh, the news. Um, I don't know. I kind of … I sort of, you know, just sent him an e-mail."

"Really?" Kyle's voice was straining under the weight of incredulity. "I mean, really, Stan, _really_? An e-mail? Nearly a year of dating you and all he gets is a so-long e-mail?"

"Well, I'd like you to suggest a better option!" Stan cried. And then he added, in a diminished voice, "And it was more like half a year."

Kyle gave a short laugh, and then his voice very suddenly steadied: "I don't date, you know that. I have anonymous liaisons under the flickering bathroom lights, one after another. I'm addicted to the instability. Do you know what I mean?"

"Who do you have these liaisons with?" was all Stan wanted to know.

Laughing again, Kyle could only manage, "I really wish I knew!"

"Well." Stan's voice tightened. "I'm going to get the fuck rid of this iPod he gave me. There's an Apple store in Denver, isn't there?"

"Oh, like you don't know. There's like _three_."

"Are there really?"

"Don't know. Never been to one."

"All right, well, let's say I'll meet you in an hour?"

"Jesus," Kyle moaned. "How am I supposed to kill an hour?"

Stan asked, "How long have you been up?"

"Oh, you know. I can't really sleep." Kyle paused. "Maybe I haven't slept since Butters' party. Or before that," he added in a very small voice.

"Kyle!" Stan exclaimed. "You have to sleep. It's not … that's not a very good thing."

"Well, sorry. I can't sleep. Maybe we should shoot you full of drugs and see how much rest you get, hmmm?"

"Sorry I asked. I'm just concerned."

"Concern yourself with being here in one hour," Kyle said, a distinct air of finality in his voice. "I don't know what I'll do, read some blogs or something."

"Or something," Stan said. "Just stay away from craigspicturesofdrunkpeople-dot-com."

"Excuse me?"

"Forget I said anything."

"One hour," Kyle said ominously, and he hung up the phone.

XXX

Kyle had been manic depressive since eighth grade; or rather, he had been diagnosed as manic depressive in eighth grade. Stan had formed most of his conception of manic depression through the media, and until his very peculiar best friend was given this label, he'd always thought of _those people_ as sullen, emo, crying, cutters. Depressed to the point of suicide. It was all very glamorous, and very morose. When Kyle called Stan from the juvenile psychiatry ward to inform him of the diagnosis, Stan refused to believe it. Kyle wasn't sad — just crazy.

In short order, Stan visited.

"I think they like to give labels to the craziness," Kyle explained, the soft plastic of his hospital bracelet making scraping-clicking noises against the metal table they were seated at. "I think they don't know how else to explain it."

Stan didn't want to explain Kyle's behavior. It had been getting weirder and weirder, riskier and riskier. One weekend he pierced his own ears with a push pin; the next he ran down Main Street naked, just because Kenny dared him too.

"Well, why would you ever listen to Kenny?" Stan remembered Sheila Broflovski screaming in the police station after that incident. Kyle was shivering in a wool blanket that was too short even on his diminutive frame, and did not conceal very much at all.

"Seemed like a good idea," Kyle chattered through his blue lips.

"What is wrong with you, Kyle?" Sheila asked again. She was so happy to get that diagnosis, manic-depressive. Despite the laborious task of medicating her 13-year-old son, Stan had never seen her happier than going through Kyle's room pulling knives and packages of cigarettes out of Kyle's underwear drawer. "A danger to himself," she sniffed, but when Sheila was angry her lips would tense, and they were very relaxed right now. "Think of it, my son is a danger to himself."

"But not to society," Kyle filled in, cheek pressed against Stan's shoulder.

Stan remembered Ike's little black eyes watching this scene intensely from the doorway. Poor Ike didn't know what bipolarity was, and Stan did feel bad that the first definition of _mania _he was ever given was his older brother streaking through the town with infected holes in his ears. Ike was only 7.

At the hospital, Stan had tried to remain on-point. "I have to tell you something." He began carefully, but the weight of his friend's condition and the frigid temperature in the common room of the hospital and the clicking of Kyle's bracelet against the metal table put him off. "I'm sorry," he garbled, tears choking his words. "I can't tell you."

"Don't cry!" Kyle exclaimed. "Seriously, Stan, you're scaring me."

"I have to go." Stan pushed down on the table as he stood up, and looked down at Kyle. His best friend had always been petty, angry, intolerant in his own way. What Stan wanted to say is, "There's a label that describes who I am, too, and I'm in awe of how okay you are with letting one term define your life." But when he opened his mouth he could only sob, "I'll come back tomorrow."

"Stan." Kyle reached out meekly, but the drugs were pinning him down. "Don't leave me?"

"I can't stay here. I have to go."

"I'm lonely, Stan, my family can only come for so many times and no one else visits me and I'm all alone—"

"Tomorrow," Stan cried to himself as he left the hospital. "Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow."

During high school, Kyle was hospitalized for manic behavior three times; twice during the summer between his sophomore and junior years.

Stan didn't come out to Kyle until the night before he left for college.

XXX

All things catch up to us. We think we can escape them, and this is what Stan thought. In eight years of manic episodes, Kyle had never lashed out at him. Once he'd been suspended from school for coming to gym class naked, and had been asked to leave his dorm freshman year of college for setting fire to his bed after a disagreement with his roommate. (He was allowed to stay in the dorm after petitioning on the basis of his mental illness, and was moved to a single in a suite with his RA.) Kyle often turned his anger inward, performing minute acts of self-harm without a second thought — tugging at his toenails until they ripped right out of his flesh; rubbing sandpaper against his lips absent-mindedly. At 15, Stan once spent the night, only to come downstairs in the morning to find Kyle making eggs in a skillet over the red-burning electric coils of the Broflovski family stove.

"Are you allowed to do that?" Stan has asked.

"Please," Kyle had scoffed. "I'm just making you breakfast." Since he'd been calm lately, Stan had left Kyle alone while he peed, and came back to witness his best friend smashing the underside of the searing pan into his left hand. Slimy pieces of pastel-yellow egg splattered when the skillet clattered against the floor; Kyle did not flinch, but smiled serenely as bulbous welts began to bloom across his knuckles.

"Holy shit!" Stan rushed to cradle Kyle's raw hand in both of his. "_Why did you do that_?"

"I wanted to." Kyle didn't struggle, or show any signs of pain. Was he immune to it? "Just be glad I didn't hit you." At the time this had seemed an idle threat. Why would Kyle hurt Stan? Stan immediately called for Sheila; Sheila immediately had Kyle institutionalized for two weeks, during which he'd missed their unit on Italian Baroque art. Upon his return he handed in a five-page, double-spaced, 12-point essay on Bernini's _Rape of Proserpina_.

"You're so smart," Stan had marveled, tracing the red-ink _A_ on the back of the essay with his finger pads.

"Yes, I am, _so smart_," Kyle agreed. "But it's easy to waste your time on these things when you're imprisoned. I mean, it's either this, or talk to doctors." He had narrowed his eyes here: "Besides." Kyle took a significant pause. "_I can relate._"

XXX

All things considered, Stan had been lucky; it was too bad that luck is not a promise.

It was Ike who answered the door on that late December afternoon, and he shoved Stan back outside, slamming it behind him. "You've got to get out of here," he hissed.

"Yeah, good morning, Ike."

"I'm serious! Kyle knows, okay? He _knows_."

Stan's eyes widened. His throat went dry. He creaked out, "He knows?"

"Yeah," was all Ike said.

"Well, how'd he find out?" Stan squeaked, voice tightening.

"It's my fault, I—" Ike was interrupted by heavy, quick footsteps. "Get out of here!" said Ike, who pushed Stan backward.

"I can explain," Stan stammered, his words not quick or easy enough to halt Kyle's rage.

"You bastard!"

"Kyle." Ike grabbed for his brother's sleeve, but Kyle shook him off, and kept marching toward Stan.

"I can't fucking believe you!" he cried, pointing at Stan. "You're a fucking rapist, do you hear me!? You're a fucking child fucking rapist!"

"Don't yell that," Ike said, attempting to grab Kyle around his shoulders. Ike was taller than Kyle, but not by much, really; they were both shorter than Stan, and to Stan all things were relative to his own underwhelming measurements. It wasn't because Kyle was any stronger than Ike, but he was … feistier, sort of, or at least more determined. Kyle may have looked effeminate, but Stan was honestly scared of him as he fought off his younger brother and screamed, "Get the fuck out of here! This is between me and Stan!"

"Oh, like hell it is," Ike scoffed. "This is my mess, Ky, let me deal—" Kyle, however, wasn't interested in what Ike had to say. He approached Stan and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket.

"You _monster_." Kyle shook him. "To think, every time I looked in your eyes and tried to find you in there I was searching for the soul of a _rapist_."

This didn't even make sense to Stan, so she choked out, "Kyle!" attempting to shield himself. "I didn't rape anyone!"

"Tell that to my baby brother!" Kyle hissed in a very low voice.

"He was quite happy about it," Stan attempted, but a slap caught him off guard on 'happy.' And then another after he choked out 'it.'

"This is absurd!" Ike shouted. He was trying to pull Kyle away from Stan again, this time from the side. "You can't act like this!"

Kyle grunted in dissatisfaction as he shoved his younger brother off of him. He seemed to be completely focused on Stan, not caring that the 15-year-old boy had fallen into the snow. Getting up and brushing off his striped sleeves, Ike moaned softly, and shook his head. "I'll be back," he panted, and before Stan could ask him where he was going, Ike was out of sight, and Kyle was slugging him.

"Jesus Christ!" Stan shouted as he stumbled. "Don't hit me!"

With a laugh, Kyle grabbed Stan around the neck. "Don't hit me! Don't hit me!" he mimicked. "You're pathetic! You're man enough to rape a kid but not man enough to take a beating from a mentally ill weakling?" Stan pushed on Kyle's arms, lamely. He wanted to say, "Well, you're obviously _not_ a weakling," but he couldn't get it out, because he was being strangled.

Giving up, Stan collapsed to his knees. He hardly believed Kyle was going to hurt him, not for real. This was _Kyle_. He wasn't a danger to others. … But then, he remembered Sheila taking him aside the afternoon Kyle came home from that gray place, and speaking to him very softly. "If he ever does anything violent, or acts out, you should tell me, yes?"

Honestly, Kyle's attempts to murder him weren't a real threat. But somehow, Stan's body locked up in a weird, numbing way, and all he could focus on while his best friend kneed him in the chest was how bad he felt that this was actually making him hard.

While he was trying to think about anything else, he listened to Kyle's absurd, hollow sobs as he continued to squeeze the life out of Stan. Before long, however, he heard a voice, an older man's, disapprovingly cry, "Kyle!" Stan felt himself let loose, and he tumbled backward. He looked up and saw his best friend being restrained by his brother and father.

"Let me go!" Kyle was shrieking. "You can't do this to me! You'll thank me when he's dead!"

"That's no way to treat Stan," Gerald said disapprovingly, trying to keep Kyle in his grasp.

"You don't know! He's a fucking monster, he's..." At this point, Stan realized that, more than anything, Kyle was genuinely upset.

Ike, who was trying his pathetic best to help his father restrain Kyle, looked right at Stan. "Are you an idiot?" he asked. Kyle was really crying now, and Stan noticed his knees scraping against the pavement, like he didn't care how bloody they got — which they would, if he kept struggling. "Get the fuck out of here," Ike said miserably. Then some of his dark, dark hair fell out of place and into his eyes.

"He's probably right," Gerald said in defeat, finally somehow managing to get Kyle to stop sobbing, although he was still pretty agitated. "Go home, Stan."

Stan got up. He thought about home. Where was home? He wasn't sure. He looked down at this ridiculous scene: Kyle's face still flush as he dragged his palms against the pavement; Ike glaring at him like he was the worst person on the planet; Gerald was trying to pull Kyle's hands off of the ground. It was Ike's resentful look that bothered Stan the most, the downturn of Ike's lips reminding him of … well, Ike's lips.

There were too many crosscurrents to handle. Stan took a breath, and bolted.

* * *

I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this! I hope you liked this well enough to make up for it. To be honest, I was slightly worried about this chapter because -- well, I guess it was tricky. I really like the next chapter, though, so look for that sooner rather than later. Thank you for reading, and be sure to let me know if you enjoyed this (or hated it).


	6. Chapter 6

The semester is coming to an end! Have an update:

* * *

Stan jogged all the way to Cartman's house, about a half mile from Kyle's, where he stopped and panted for several minutes. His life was beginning to feel as if it were spinning out of control. Who did he call in these times of crisis? He pulled out his phone and began to scroll past names. College friends, college friends … well, they couldn't help him now. He scrolled past Craig. When had he gotten Craig's number? He hadn't had Craig's number since two phones ago. Weren't his plans for the day to go to Denver? He reached Kenny's name, and hit send.

"Yo," was Kenny's comfortable greeting. "Where you at?"

"Um." Stan tried to catch his breath. "Standing in front of Cartman's."

"Really." It sounded like Kenny was chewing something. "What the fuck are you doing there?"

"Are you chewing something?"

There followed some definite chewing noises. "Yeah, carrots. Why?"

"No reason." Stan paused. "So, Kyle flipped out on me."

"No kidding." Chewing.

"And I really didn't know where to go."

"So you ran to Cartman's house?"

"Well, we were _supposed_ to go to the Apple Store," Stan explained.

"Who, you and Cartman?"

"No, me and Kyle. But then he got upset at me, and so I flipped out and didn't know where to run, and I ran in this direction." That was one of the scant upsides of Kyle's strange condition — Stan knew Kenny was not going to ask what Kyle was upset about, because Kyle became unjustifiably upset about so many things, it was hardly worth his time. "So, do you want to go to the Apple Store?"

Chewing noise, chewing noise, swallowing noise, deep breath. "Can't. I gotta go to some Lamaze shit." Stan rolled his eyes, a gesture lost on Kenny, since he wasn't there in person. Kenny, however, must have taken Stan's silence as Stan not having heard him: "I said, Lamaze. Hello? You can come with me and Trish to Lamaze."

"What the fuck is that shit even about?"

"Oh, I don't know, I'm probably going to leave in the first three minutes of the thing and smoke up behind the community center. You want in? I got some great stuff here. It's a shame to waste it on baby class boredom."

Stan hissed. Why would Kenny want him impinging on a family moment? "Thanks, but no thanks. I gotta get to the Apple Store and get rid of this iPod." He waited for Kenny to ask about it, but he didn't . "Because I dumped Loren," he continued.

"Oh." And then it sounded like Kenny was taking a bite out of something. "Who's that?"

"My ex-boyfriend."

"Since when do you have a boyfriend?"

"Well, if you want to be technical about it, since I just said he's my ex, since never."

"Oh," Kenny said stupidly, and a female voice began shrilling in the background. Kenny hung up.

Luckily for Stan, Cartman was in a particularly dynamic mood. "Yeah, I need to get out of here," he said as he shoved Stan out of the door. It was weird how they didn't even say hello. Stan had just asked, "Do you want to go to the Apple store with me?" And Cartman apparently did.

"My mom is such a cunt," he grumbled, fumbling his key into the ignition of her car. It was one of those great heaving masses of bobbling key chains and a dozen or so small, circular bike keys and lord knew how many tangles. "God, I hate that bitch. Does your mom do that shit to you?"

"What shit?"

"I don't fucking know." Cartman turned around as he carefully reverse-glided the car out the driveway. He shifted into park. "She's just always like, 'Oh, Eric, blah blah blah, I'm a whore, why don't you be a good boy and lick my cunt?' "

Stan's nose twitched, and he wiped it. "Your mom wants you to lick her cunt."

"I don't fucking know what that bitch wants from me. Parents are such total assholes. _I_ didn't ask to be here. I didn't tell that drunk whore to spread her legs. _She_ should be doing shit for _me_, and when I tell her to shut her fucking face, she should do what I say."

"Yeah," Stan agreed. "Parents suck."

For a moment, Stan stared at Cartman's big, red cheeks and fingerless gloves. He was rapping on the steering wheel, obviously impatient. "So, where the fuck is the Apple store?"

"Cherry Creek. Just get on the road to Denver," Stan explained, half-heartedly indicating the direction he knew Eric was going to drive in. "Then, um, when we get near the city I'll tell you how to get there." He paused while his friend slipped the car in drive. "Just trust me. I know the way by heart."

Cartman simply rolled his eyes.

* * *

They fought about what music to listen to on the way there, Stan insisting all the way that Sublime was like, totally lame.

"It's so passé," he complained, cheek against the frosted window of Liane Cartman's red Volvo station wagon.

"It is _not_. Sublime totally kicks ass."

"Yeah, in 1994."

"Well, it's not like you have a better suggestion."

Stan shifted, and stuck his fingers in his back pocket. The little iPod was there, cool and sleek and smooth. But he hesitated, because he didn't want to look at the stupid thing again until he was getting rid of it.

"This song is so awesome," Cartman insisted. "It's all about, like, um, riots and stuff."

Stan wondered if this was what he'd be listening to if _he _were an asshole straight dude in a fraternity.

"Whatever."

"Whatever? _Whatever_? Did you just say 'whatever' to Sublime? I think you just said 'whatever' to Sublime! Oh my god, dude. You have, like, _no _musical taste. Chicks totally dig a guy who listens to Sublime. This one time? I totally banged this chick to Sublime."

Stan shut his eyes. "That's great, Eric."

"I know. It was so totally _awesome_."

"At least I wasn't listening to Sublime the only time I ever had sex," Stan muttered.

Cartman scoffed. "Yeah, right. That wasn't the _only_ time I ever had sex; it was just the _first_ time."

"It's still lame," Stan argued.

"Whatever, Stan. At least my first time wasn't with _Butters_."

That caught Stan's attention. "What?"

Cartman switched lanes. "I said, at least I've never been fucked in the ass by Butters."

Stan blinked. "How do you _know that_?" he barely managed to croak out.

With a snort, Cartman rolled his eyes. "Butters tells me everything."

"Oh, my god." Stan put his head in his hands.

"It's okay, dude, it's not like I ever told anyone. I mean, I totally _could_ have. I thought about it. But let's face it: No one would believe that shit."

"I think this is the worst day of my life."

"Worse than the day you let Butters screw you up the asshole?" Stan could swear he saw Cartman smirking through this question.

"Look, you know, we were kids. It was all, like, trying to sort things out, and … and…"

"Oh my god, dude," Cartman said, somewhat wistfully. "I've dreamed about this moment for so long, you have no idea. I just wish … well, I guess I wish I weren't driving, so I could see how miserable you look knowing that I've known all this time that you actually let Butters — Butters, of all people! — fuck you in the ass."

Stan tried to sit up straighter to reassert himself. "It's not so absurd!" he protested. "I'm gay, fat ass, and that is sort of what we _do—_"

"Oh, really?" Cartman crowed. "I hadn't noticed! I find this information shocking. I think I need some music. Like, to help me process."

Before Stan could protest, or form words, or shove Eric's hand away from the dial, the volume was at maximum capacity, locking both of them into another half hour of driving to outdated college rock at an unbearable frequency.

* * *

He could not fucking believe they wouldn't take back his fucking iPod.

"It's engraved, sir," the clerk told him dourly. "You can't just return an engraved iPod."

"Well, what the fuck _am_ I supposed to do with it?" It was at this moment that he felt his back pocket vibrating.

"Oh, shit," Stan gasped, feeling overwhelmed. He turned to Cartman, who was giving him a look of visible annoyance at simply having to be there. Then he whipped right back around to the man behind the counter and said, very sweetly, "Please?"

"Hey, queer," Cartman pointed out, as if Stan couldn't hear. "Your damn phone is mooing."

"Here!" Stan shouted, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He thrust it into Cartman's face. "Deal with it!" he cried over the electronic animal noises.

"All right, fine." Cartman opened the phone and Stan heard him ask, "What?" as he shuffled away.

"Sir," the clerk began again, clearing his throat. "We cannot take back this iPod. It's engraved, it's open, it's been played. It's loaded with music. It's _yours_."

"But you don't understand!" Stan was feeling desperate. "My ex-boyfriend gave it to me!"

"Wow, that was awfully nice of him," the clerk deadpanned.

"No, no," Stan corrected. "We were dating when I _got_ it. I dumped him like a week later."

"Wow." The man did not flinch. "You're an asshole."

"Oh, like you have fucking any _idea_," Stan growled. He saw Cartman sidle back up to him out of the corner of his eye. "_He's_ an asshole."

Cartman cleared his throat, proffering the cell. "Here, buddy. Someone wants to talk to you."

Stan took the phone with hesitance, bringing it slowly to his ear.

"Hello?"

Instantly, he was rewarded with, "You bloody fucking asshole!"

Stan swallowed. "Hi, Loren."

"You fucking piece of shit!"

"Did you have a nice Christmas?"

"We'll just be going," Cartman said to the man behind the counter, tugging Stan away from the returns desk, phone clutched to his ear.

* * *

There was nothing Stan could do but stay on the telephone and be berated by one pissed-off ex. After about five minutes of this, Cartman threw his arms up in exasperation, and exclaimed. "Well, screw you, hippie! I'll be at the GameStop if you need me." Stan didn't want him to leave, but he knew that if he stopped to beg Cartman to stick around, Loren would just get on his case about how he was with some other dude. If that happened, no amount of explanation would help end the accusations of cheating and heartbreaking and callousness. Besides, Stan wasn't really sure how to explain Eric Cartman to anyone who didn't know him, and just why it was inconceivable that they ever had or ever would have sex. Still, as annoying as screaming was, Loren wasn't wrong; Stan had cheated on him with delightful regularity, just about as often as he could. So he held his tongue, and felt miserably put-upon while his ex-boyfriend gave him the dressing-down he maybe-probably-didn't deserve.

Stan really didn't want this to last all day. He could barely get a word in, so he took the time to think about Kyle. How did Kyle find out about him and Ike? For that matter, why did Kyle care? Kyle was definitely having sex when he was 15 — well, maybe not _having_ sex, but he had definitely _had_ sex. So he figured Kyle's attitude toward 15-year-olds having sex must be generally positive, right? If Stan had been having sex when he was 15, instead of masturbating to Kyle's yearbook picture with the lights off and door locked, would someone have cared? He supposed it all had to do with who he would have been theoretically boning. Still, he had no idea why Kyle was so pissed off, so emotionally torn on this. Granted, Kyle wasn't stable, but he had always been relatively cool to Stan, so … was he just being possessive? Was it even possible that he was—

"Are you even listening to me?"

Stan pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he got an idea. "You know what?" he snapped. "No."

There was a pause, then a shriek of ,"Well, fuck you, Marsh!" and with that, Loren hung up the phone.

"Christ." Stan shut his phone, and shoved it back in his pocket.

There was a directory a few feet away, Stan shuffled over to it, hands on his hips, scanning around for the GameStop. To his dismay, it was one floor down and somewhat far away, and Stan was inwardly cursing Cartman for wandering off when Cartman showed back up, grabbing Stan by the shoulder and whirling him around.

"We have a problem."

"What?" Stan snapped. "I am not in the mood for problems, Cartman! What is the fucking problem?"

"My keys," he said mournfully. "I think somebody stole them. Or I left them somewhere."

Stan's jaw dropped. "You're sure?" he asked.

"I'm afraid so."

"Well, that's just fucking great!" Stan cried. He whipped around, looking for somewhere to sit. He wobbled over to the nearest bench, dodging the moderate amount of post-holiday shoppers, and fell onto his ass, only to be joined by Cartman. "This is just fucking awesome, Eric, like all I need is to be stranded at a fucking mall in Denver with you and this _fucking_ iPod."

"Chill out, dude." Cartman yanked his phone out of his pocket. "I'll just call my fucking mom. She's got spare keys."

"Like I really want to wait for her to get her ass out here and drive us home!"

Cartman silently gave Stan the finger while he talked to his mother: "Well, sorry, bitch! Sometimes people make mistakes, okay?" Stan could hear Liane's concerned blathering on the other side of the phone. She probably wasn't saying anything too upsetting, just a lot of, 'That was very naughty, Eric,' and, 'You have to be more responsible, poopsiekins.'

"Just be fucking here to get us," Eric concluded. "Yeah, all right, we'll wait by the fucking car." He shut his phone, making an audible noise in his fury. "God! I cannot stand that ho!"

* * *

"You need to chill out, seriously," Cartman announced as they made their way past the Express for Men. Stan remembered shopping at Express for Men. He was so naïve then, about what was attractive and what was cool. He hoped he looked better now. He hoped. "You need to stop being such a whiny gay baby," he heard Cartman say, and he stopped in front of the pretzel cart. "What?" Cartman asked, stalking back toward Stan. "You're being a whiny fucking gay baby. So your damn ex called to bitch? Whatever, what do you care? Just be like, 'Fuck you, ho, I'm done with you now,' and move on." Cartman crossed his arms.

"I find so much wrong with what you just said. One, like you would have _any idea_ what kind of stress this dumping situation has got me in—"

Cartman rolled his eyes. "Oh, like I've never had to dump some fucking cumbucket bitch before, you whiny gay baby."

"I hardly believe that. … And I am _not_ a whiny gay baby!"

"Oh, let's see about that." Cartman began to count off on his fingers. "Are you being a baby? Yes. Are you whining about some stupid bullshit thing? Yes! Are you gay? Are you ever! So yeah, I'm gonna have to stick with my initial statement."

"Fuck you, Eric, seriously. You can't fucking go around calling people gay whiny babies whenever you damn well feel like it."

"I said 'whiny gay baby,' not 'gay whiny baby,' " Cartman corrected. He coughed. "For the record."

"Shut up!"

"All right, that's fine." Cartman threw his hands up and made a disgusted expression before continuing out to the parking lot, repeating 'whiny gay baby' under his breath as he left.

As much as he would like to have refused to follow, Stan was incredibly eager to get home, so he set off on a slow, stilted run after his shopping companion.

When he'd finally caught up, Stan panted, "Slow down, asshole."

"Oh, oh _I'm_ an asshole." Cartman did not slow down. "You're been, like, PMSing since you got in the car with me."

"I _do not_ PMS, Cartman!"

"Whatever, Stan. PMSing, fagging out, whatever the fuck is wrong with you, just cut it out right now. I got enough shit to worry about between you acting like a bitch and my fucking slut mom giving me a hard time."

Stan was still trying to catch his breath while keeping up with Eric's long-legged stride. "You must be insane. Your mom is one of the _nicest_ people I've ever met."

"Yeah," Eric agreed. "To her fucking _boyfriend_. That guy just seriously pisses me off."

"Your mom is dating?"

It seemed like Eric wasn't even listening to Stan anymore. "I don't even know how she got some dude to do her anyway, it's not like she's hot anymore. Not like _your_ mom."

"What?" Stan thought he could feel his eyes bugging out of their sockets.

"I mean, your mom is super hot."

"_What_?" Stan repeated. He was sure his face was turning red.

"Calm down, Stan. If you weren't gay, you'd understand."

"If I wasn't _gay_? What? _No_. How about, she's my mom!" Stan paused. "And she's like 50!" he added.

"Yeah, I'm just saying, she's totally like a MILF." Cartman rolled his eyes as Stan continued to make noises of outrage. "Okay, fine, that's fine. Don't take my compliments. I won't start telling you your sister's hot, either."

"Oh, no no _no_. Please, just stop, Cartman. Please, please. Just stop."

"What? You'd think a guy would be flattered that another guy totally thinks his mom and sister are hot."

Stan felt queasy. "You just don't get it at all, Cartman. Just not at all."

They walked the rest of the way to the car in relative silence. Stan's attention was caught between being frankly perturbed by Cartman's mind-boggling insistence that the women in his family were 'hot,' and being downright grateful that he had the everyday normalcy of Cartman's attitude to distract him from the things that were really eating away at him. And the thing was, he didn't feel even halfway bad about Loren. Even Loren was just another distraction from Kyle. Oh sure, he wished he hadn't been yelled at, but then, if he hadn't been yelled at, he wouldn't be filling his mind with the little indignities that came with being screamed at over the phone from a thousand miles away by your ex-boyfriend, who really just did not understand how very painful it was to put up with his sappy bullshit every moment of your relationship, and how dare he, and so on.

Relative silence meant that there was no talking, but Cartman was always making some sort of noise, generally making little grunts as he thundered through the salty slush of the parking lot. Stan imagined what it must be like to be intimate with Eric Cartman, how he must have grunted in his sleep and when on the receiving end of oral sex, and in all sorts of other places. Loren was the kind of man who gave willowy little gasps of sighs, shuddering gently like a hollow-boned creature, maybe that bizarre lizard-bird Stan sometimes saw in dinosaur books as a kid. Cartman, on the other hand, was quite like a water buffalo, Stan assumed, very noisy and prone to making guttural noises up until the moment they reached his car and he belched out, "Oh, fuck me."

"What?" Stan asked.

Cartman pressed his nose up to the glass and pointed down at his seat. "There's my keys," he said sadly, like there was some regret in his voice.

"So?" Stan asked. "Open the door." With ease, Cartman was able to retrieve his car keys from the seat. "Dude. All that stress," Stan lamented.

"Whatever." Cartman snapped his fingers, and nestled his behind in the cloth of the bucket seat. "Come on, let's bail."

"Bail?" Stan asked. "Aren't you at least going to call your mom?"

Cartman snorted. "She's got nothing better to do," was all he gave as an excuse. He revved the engine a couple of times before lighting up a cigarette. Stan opened his mouth, but Cartman just said, "I know, you quit. God, you're a preachy bitch."

"I didn't even say anything," was the last thing Stan said for the duration of the drive back to South Park.

* * *

Cartman dropped him off at home, but not before toying with Stan's meager request to avoid driving past the Broflovskis' at all costs. "Why?" Cartman asked between the thin twists of smoke pervading his nostrils. "You're like 4 sometimes, Stan, seriously, Jesus Christ."

"Aw, you know what? Just fucking drive however you want."

"Oh-ho, no, you'd like that, wouldn't you, buddy?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know." Cartman paused to extinguish yet another cigarette, his fifth of the ride, out on the dashboard. "What the fuck are we even talking about?"

"Just do me a favor and don't drive by Kyle's, okay? I've had enough shit for the time being."

When he was getting out of the car, Stan dug the iPod out of his pocket, and tossed it in Cartman's lap.

"Thanks for the time!" he said sarcastically.

"What the fuck is this?" Cartman asked, scrambling to get the device out from between his legs. "What am I going to do with a gay blue iPod?"

"I don't know, I sure as fuck don't want it. Sell it on eBay or something."

Cartman turned the thing around, inspecting it carefully, and Stan noticed his sour expression softening gradually, until he got to the back. "Loren? Aw, sick! What the fuck do you think I want this gay iPod for?"

"It's not a gay iPod, fat ass!" Stan snapped. "An iPod can't be gay!"

"Yeah, _right_, and that's why it says 'Heart Loren' on it, like _that's_ not gay?"

"Well, how do you know it's not for a girl? And for that matter, how do you even know what gender Loren is?"

"Because he spells his fucking name like a fucking faggot fairy!" Immediately, Cartman corrected himself: "Sorry, a fucking _homosexual_ fairy, sorry."

"It's okay." Stan shrugged. "I fucking hate him, call him a faggot all you want."

"Well, thanks for the iPod, Stan," Cartman sneered, fishing another cigarette out of his pack. "Merry fucking Christmas and shit."

"Oh, fuck off, Cartman, it's a perfectly good iPod!"

In response, Cartman rolled up the passenger window and sped away, brandishing a finger.

* * *

Despite his best effort, Stan did not stomp angrily up the stairs quickly enough to avoid his mother.

"Aw, what now?" he moaned, pulling off his gloves. "Can't I have one fucking moment of privacy?"

Sharon blinked at him. And then she snapped: "You've barely spoken to me _or_ your father since you've been home! You haven't even come out of your room except for Christmas dinner and to open presents!"

"Yeah, and I'm so fucking glad, 'cause they were so fucking awesome," Stan replied.

Sharon crossed her arms. "You'll thank us when you're older! A lot of people wish their parents would set them up with a retirement account."

Stan rolled his eyes. "A lot of people would also see that their cheap-ass parents were just looking to hide taxable income from the IRS."

Evasively, Sharon said, "Well, what about the clothes, Stanley? All of your T-shirts are falling apart."

"Oh my _God_, will you just stop _trying_ so fucking hard to hold on the tentative grasp you have on my childhood? Jesus Christ, other people let their kids grow up!"

"I think a good number of them don't." Shifting her weight, Sharon said, "That reminds me. I invited the Broflovskis over for dinner tomorrow night."

Stan blanched. And then he shouted, "What?"

"Well, I don't know when the next time you're going to be home is!" Sharon snapped, and it definitely sounded like she'd been holding this in for a while. But then, of course, she softened: "We haven't seen your sister for three years," she said pitifully. It was true, none of them had. "I would just like it if for a couple of weeks, we could be like we used to be."

Stan grunted. "How did we used to be?"

"Familial, I guess," Sharon wagered.

"We were never like that, Mom."

She pushed some of his hair out of his eyes, and he flinched. "You were such a mild boy," she told him, like he wanted to be told how he used to be when he was lame and scared and pathetic. "We're proud of you, you know. Why won't you let us be part of things? The least you can do is come to dinner tomorrow. Kyle will be there, it's not like you have to be with the grown ups."

Stan sighed. "Am I not a grown up?"

"You know what I mean."

"I'm pissed at Kyle. Kyle's a douche." This was more or less a lie — he wasn't pissed at Kyle, he was afraid of Kyle; Kyle wasn't a douche, he was just overreacting. But Sharon didn't need to hear anything introspective at the moment, as far as Stan was concerned.

"It's 6:30 tomorrow night," she said, with some finality. "Can we expect to see you then, honey?"

Stan shut his eyes. "Sure," he breathed. "Just leave me alone until then."

"Okay," she agreed quietly. She turned to walk away, but stopped for a moment. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" she asked tentatively.

He grunted in acknowledgment, and waited for her to go away before making his way up the stairs.


	7. Chapter 7

"Hi, rapist," Kyle said very quietly. He was whispering, but Stan could tell he was having a little trouble monitoring the volume of his voice. "Fuck any more babies today?"

Stan drew away, and lifted Kyle's arms off of his shoulders. "How are you?" he asked quite seriously. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine," he sniffed, wobbling backward. "I'm jacked up on multiple sedatives. When I lash out, they get so concerned, they fuck me up with drugs. _I feel like I could die and wouldn't even feel it_." Kyle lowered his eyes. "I'm angry at you for so many things right now." He fidgeted with his sunglasses; he kicked one of his heels against the base of the stairs. "I think they only came because I'm on so many _fucking_ drugs it's like I'd rather go lie down than be angry at you. So, bye." Kyle tried to give Stan the finger, but he was having some kind of trouble figuring out which finger he wanted to give, so he shrugged off, and stumbled toward his parents and Stan's, who were all sort of standing around the coffee table in the living room. Stan saw his mom eating celery.

Behind him, Ike cleared his throat. "Can we go upstairs?" he asked.

"What? Oh, yeah. Okay, sure."

* * *

As soon as Stan had shut the bedroom door and sat down on his bed, Ike tried to jump him again. "No!" Stan shrieked, jumping up. "There is so much fucked up about that! No!"

"Don't yell," Ike sniffed, brushing off his sleeves in defeat. "You want them to hear?" He shook his head sadly. "Is my eyeliner smeared?"

Stan knelt down next to his bed, and pulled Ike toward him. "It's fine," he hissed. "You listen to me. There will be no more sex, do you get it? What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?"

Ike cleared his throat. "I'm horny."

"Take my advice, and do what I did when I was 15 and lived in South Park, and find out how to clear your browsing history, and jack off like a normal kid. Okay?"

"I'm past that," Ike argued. "I'm beyond that."

"Be beyond it all you want, we're done now." Stan tried to leave the room.

Ike threw himself in front of the door. "Wait!"

"What now?" Stan asked impatiently. "You've fucked up my life enough for one week."

"Well, that's kinda rich," Ike sneered. "I wonder how that would hold up in court. 'Your honor, that little boy, he practically _raped_ me! I have no control over where I stick my cock when I'm fucked up.' "

"Will you stop threatening me already?"

"I'm not going to tell!" Ike swore. "I told you I wouldn't."

"I see, that's great. Then tell me this, Ike, how the _fuck_ did Kyle find out?"

Ike blushed, and put his hands in his lap. "It's a long story," he said. Then he shook his head. "I mean, it's a pretty short story. He, um … he read it on my LiveJournal."

Stan blinked. "What?"

"I fucked up, okay! I'm sorry. I used the wrong filter. I thought I blocked him out."

"Kyle has a _LiveJournal_?"

"Where else would he write his weird pharma-psychological ramblings?"

Stan smacked his forehead, and sank into his old desk chair. "This is brilliant."

"I'm really, really sorry." Ike hung his head. "I didn't _mean_ for him to find out."

"And then you try to seduce me again?"

"Look," Ike began. He heaved a sigh. His hands were still clasped in his lap. "I have problems like _everyone_. I like sex like _everyone_. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm not … I'm never going to tell my parents, or anything. Ky's not going to tell them. We help each other, you know?"

Stan rolled his eyes. "Are you sure you're sure? Because Kyle's fucking nuts, in case you didn't notice."

That pissed Ike off, and he snapped, "I noticed! Goddamn, you think I grew up with him and didn't notice? In case _you_ didn't notice, I'm fucking 15 fucking years fucking old and so far the extent of my activities have been playing the bass, babysitting my fucking insane older brother, and fucking his best friend. Okay? That's all. That's sort of the extent of my _life_."

"Oh," Stan said stupidly. He could hear his parents and the Broflovskis laughing downstairs. He imagined Kyle was probably sitting by himself, head resting on the back of his chair or a wall, eyes rolled up, wishing he weren't in this situation. He felt bad for Kyle, he really did. He felt bad, and yet he would rather be up here with Ike all of a sudden than down there trying to make his best friend feel any better. He sighed.

"I'm sorry, too," Stan admitted. "I really am. I'm, like, an adult, and you're a kid. I'm sorry I took advantage of you."

"You didn't take advantage of me. Don't be sorry! How many dudes do you think I get to fuck? I mean, zero. It was fun. We should do it again, you—"

"No. Just no."

"Well, I'm very sorry I let him find out, okay? Believe me." Ike stood up, and wiggled his hips to get his wallet chain back in place. "More than wanting to protect _you_, believe it or not, I wanted to protect _him_. He doesn't deserve this. He can't help how he's going to react to stuff. I see the way they medicate him. It's not pleasant. You saw him down there, right? Pumping a guy full of drugs doesn't make him _happy_." Ike crossed his arms. "What'd your mom make for dinner?"

"Pot roast." Stan sighed. "Fucking, like, pot roast."

"Fabulous," Ike deadpanned, slipping out the door.

Before he went back downstairs, Stan looked at himself in the mirror. His yellow T-shirt had a picture of a cassette tape on it. He shut his eyes, and rearranged his bangs. "Awful," he whispered to himself. "You're awful." But he couldn't tell if he believed it.

* * *

Stan knew Ike was punishing him, because he took the chair between him and Kyle, and immediately put his right hand in Stan's lap. All throughout dinner, he rubbed Stan's thigh under the tablecloth, pausing every now and then to give a squeeze, or pay some attention to his dick, which in turn made Stan regret wearing boxers. Ike Broflovski was apparently adept at eating pot roast with one hand, even pausing at one moment to chat with Stan's mother about how he enjoyed being left-handed. "It's just another special thing about me," he said cheerily, twirling his fork around in a pile of mashed potatoes. "I'm Canadian, did you know?"

"Really, bubbe," Sheila said graciously. "I think everyone knows."

"It's nice being an outsider," Ike continued, letting his thumb graze over the head of Stan's dick.

"Don't the kids pick on you at school?" Randy asked.

"Sometimes," Ike admitted.

"You shouldn't let them do that," Sharon added. "When Stan was about your age, he got picked on. Do you remember that, honey?"

Stan shrugged.

"It's true, he did. I think the other kids picked up on his insecurities, you know?"

"Mom," Stan wheedled.

"But, do you know what? He had Kyle." At hearing his name, Kyle gave a weak little wave to Stan's mom, and then crossed his arms and let his head rest against the back of his chair. "So what I'm saying, Ike," Sharon concluded. "Is that it's always nice to have friends."

Ike frowned. "I have Fillmore. I have some friends."

"You have lots of friends," Sheila suggested.

"They're more like acquaintances," Ike corrected.

"Well, whoever," Gerald said with a shrug. "You're not alone, that's all that matters."

Dinner had been going on like this for what seemed like an eternity; perhaps it had only been 20 or 25 minutes. The parents were talking to Ike; Ike was leading them around, relishing the power that all kids who are the center of attention eventually learn how to savor. Stan was breathing through his nose very audibly, trying to choke down chunks of pot roast, all the while pretending that he wasn't being somewhat masturbated under the table. The worst part about it was that he was too afraid to stop, or move Ike's hand.

Kyle was silent, not hungry, trying to stay focused on the conversation, or at least awake enough to push his food round his plate with some enthusiasm. He perked up, however, when he heard his father's statement.

He lurched forward. "Loneliness," he said. He put his hands on the table; his loose sleeves caught his mother's attention as they grazed the gravy boat. "It's so interesting that you mention loneliness."

"Yes?" Gerald asked, turning to his son. "And why's that, Kyle?"

Kyle shook his head. "It's so apropos, that here we are discussing loneliness."

"Why?" asked Sharon Marsh. Since eighth grade, she had developed a somewhat patronizing attitude toward Kyle; it had always really annoyed Stan. It was as if she couldn't appreciate his value as a friend without recalling that he was somewhat damaged, and that whatever worth he had to Stan had to have been distilled from his lack of normalcy. "Have you been discussing loneliness lately?" she asked slowly.

Kyle gave a disgusted look, and then shrugged. "Oh, brother."

With a profound look of concern in her eyes, Sheila reached across the table for Kyle's hand, which he rapidly drew back from her. "Is something the matter? You can say it, bubbelah, it's all old friends here."

"Don't treat me like a fucking child," Kyle rasped out. There was a definitely misery to his tone, and yet, his words sounded so hollow. It very nearly made Stan cringe.

Stan felt Ike's hand still on his thigh.

"But." Sheila sighed, thoughtfully. "But, Kyle, you _are_ my child. What's the matter?"

Kyle rolled his eyes.

"Do you want to talk later?"

"Why do you do this to me?"

"Do what?" Sheila asked.

"Sheila." Gerald lowered his eyes. "It's a bad time."

Stan caught his parents cast each other wayward glances. Ike's hand resumed its casual motions.

Kyle shut his eyes. In a dead, flat voice, he said, "You take away everything from me."

"That's not what—" Gerald began.

Sheila interrupted. "That is so unfair, Kyle. You know it's not _us_. It's … well, it's complicated."

Sharon pushed her chair back from the table. "Would anyone like a drink?"

"Beer," Randy announced, in a way that made it clear he was through giving time at his dinner to some insane kid's pathos.

"Well, I'll have a beer, too," Gerald said, pulling his napkin from his lap and tossing it on the table.

Sharon nodded. "Sheila? Can I get you anything?"

"Oh, no thank you. I'm fine with my water."

"No one is fine with water," Kyle mumbled.

"Did you say something?" his mother asked him.

Ike cleared his throat. "I'll have a beer, please."

"You're too young," Gerald told him.

"Rats." Ike snapped his fingers with his free hand. "I'll take a coffee. Do you have coffee?"

"I can make a pot." Sharon crossed her arms. "So, that's two beers, a coffee, I'll have a refill of sauvignon blanc … Stanley?"

Stan's knee jerked, and Ike's hand clenched into his thigh. "Yes?"

"Honey, do you want a drink?"

The entire table was looking at him, expect for Kyle. Kyle was looking away from him, purposely, staring at the china cabinet.

"I'm fine," Stan told his mother. "Thanks."

"Okay, two beers, a wine, and a coffee. While I'm up, can I get anyone anything else?"

"A shotgun," Ike called out.

Against his better judgment, Stan snorted in amusement, despite the fact that it wasn't funny. Kyle turned toward him, slowly, cracked a wry smile, and got up from the table.

"Okay," Sharon said one final time. She disappeared into the kitchen.

* * *

After dinner, when the Broflovskis has left, Stan marched into the kitchen, and sat down at the table. Across the room, his mother was doing the dishes, handing them one by one to his father, who dried them and placed them in the cabinet. Stan thought about his childhood, trying to remember if Randy Marsh had ever been the genteel type of man who helped his wife dry the china after a meal with old friends. It hadn't been like this in high school, had it? Stan tried to remember back farther. He never thought of his father as a helpmeet; more often, he was just a bother. Did he help dry dishes all the time now? Was his mother bribing his father with unmentionable sex acts? The thought made Stan shudder, and he defiantly announced: "I'm leaving."

At the sink, Sharon shrugged. "How long will you be gone for?"

"Forever."

"Are you taking the car?" his father asked.

"No, you don't understand." Stan cleared his throat. "I'm buying a plane ticket and I'm getting the hell out of here. Okay? To hell with this fucking town."

"But, Stanley." Sharon turned around, pulling off a yellow rubber glove finger by finger. "You're supposed to be here until the 15th."

"Well, I hate it here, so I'm leaving. All right? I'm out of here. Good-bye. So long." He gave a sarcastic salute. "Adios," he added for good measure.

"Wait just a minute." Randy shut off the tap, and crossed his arms. "Who's going to pay for you to change your plane ticket?"

Stan shrugged. "I have some savings bonds I can cash out."

"Those are supposed to be for your future!" his mother protested.

"Yeah, my future away from this conformist-ass crap town."

"Jesus Christ, Randy," Sharon gasped. "_Do_ _something_."

"Um." Randy looked around, locking eyes on his wife. "Can't you see you're upsetting your mother?"

"Sorry," Stan sniffed. "You don't have to drive me to the airport. I'll get Kenny to do it, or something." He turned to leave the kitchen.

"Wait!" Sharon rushed after him, grabbing him by the sleeve. "Stanley, let's talk about this! You don't want to just walk out on your family!"

"No, I do," Stan disagreed, brushing her off of him. "You just don't want to tell your friends that _both_ of your kids walked out on this fucked-up situation."

"No, it's not that! How could you say that?"

Stan clutched at the bottom of his yellow T-shirt, and he paused at the bottom of the stairs and spun to face her.

"You're my _son_. You're my _baby_. You can't just walk out on me, honey, I—"

Stan blinked at her. Did she really look this old? She couldn't be _that_ old. Certainly, her red, wet eyes didn't help.

"You're my baby, Stanley. I love you." She pawed at his hair, and he didn't stop her. "Please don't leave me."

Stan was used to being seduced, and yet he'd never learned to resist it. His brand of self-assertion was passive aggressive; was it any wonder where he'd learned it from?

"Stay until New Year's, honey," she pleaded. "It's just a few more days. Just give us some time to have you in the house. I don't want to lose you. You're my son, Stanley, I — I need you to stay for a couple more days."

He just wanted her to stop. "Okay. … But just until the 2nd."

"Then we'll see you off," Sharon agreed.

"Yeah." He rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

* * *

Sorry for the delay. Truly, I mean it. But, as always, thank you for reading, if indeed you have read.


	8. Chapter 8

This is the longest chapter of this story so far! I think.

* * *

Upstairs, Stan lay on his bed with the lights off, his clothing on, and his eyes open. The shades weren't shut, and every few minutes the wind smacked a thin wisp of a tree branch against his window. The snow had shaken from it so long ago that Stan could not even find anything poetic about it; it was just annoying. Had he any energy, he'd have gotten up and opened the window and snapped that frail little branch from its larger, stronger branch and tossed it down into his yard to be covered by the next blanket of snow, which was due to arrive sometime the next evening. He took some solace in the fact that if a tree branch was going to keep him awake, at least he would bear witness to one last Rocky Mountain snow storm before he never had to deal with one again.

This was agony; there was no longer anyone to turn to, or so he felt. He ran through the names of his friends from Northwestern in his head. Could he call one of them to moan about ending things with Loren? Of course he could, but he wholly internalized the fact that he didn't want to, and what was more, he didn't need to. He felt sickened that he cared so little that it was over, but not enough to will himself to try to care. He could not shake Kyle's lifeless stare from his mind, and he knew the reaction he would get if he tried to talk to someone from school about it. They were not of the world where you might wake up one morning in a 15-year-old boy's bed. They were not of South Park. They didn't _know_.

Just when he was hoping he would not fall asleep without flossing, his phone began to ring, or rather, moo, so he rolled over and pulled it from his back pocket, opening to reveal the name _craig_. "Hello, Craig Tucker," he said lifelessly in answer.

"Stan Marsh," Craig said in his brash monotone. Stan had been wondering if there had been some kind of reason he had Craig's number in his phone now. "I put those photos of you up. Did you check it out?"

Stan really wanted not to lie, but something compelled him to do so anyway. "Of course."

"Good stuff, right?"

"Thrilling."

"I'm leaving town tomorrow." Craig coughed into the phone. "Token's gone back to _Hahhhhhhhhvahd_, and Clyde's sitting at home alone practicing his deep breathing." Stan waited for it, waited for him to add, 'And Tweek is dead,' but apparently Craig was far past being able to complete a set. "Do you want to grab a drink?"

Stan sat up, and brushed some hair from his eyes. "Yeah," he said slowly, dragging it out. "That sounds okay."

"Oh, okay. Do you want me to pick you up?"

He thought for a moment. No, each additional moment he had to sit in this house was torture. "I can meet you." He didn't have to discuss where; there were only two bars in town, and one of them was for lesbians.

He did not ask his mother if he could borrow her car. He just grabbed her keys and left, pausing only to nod the most cursory of nods at his father (who was sitting on the living room couch watching a hockey game) on the way out the door.

XXX

When Stan arrived, Craig was already seated at the bar, drinking. "PBR," he announced, as if Stan couldn't tell. "The ironic choice of disaffected fake-ass hipsters everywhere." Craig paused to give his self-awareness some weight. "You want one?"

Stan took his seat and removed his bulky jacket to reveal his yellow cassette tape T-shirt. "No thanks," he said. "Have they got any Goose Island?"

"Nice, but no, why would they? Look at this fucking pit. They haven't got _anything_."

Stan smiled in agreement and ordered a Rolling Rock. "Where's your camera?" he asked after his drink arrived.

"I didn't bring it." Craig wiped his broad, red lips. Stan silently wondered why Craig didn't use lip balm. "I don't bring it everywhere."

"I thought that was your thing. Pictures of drunk people?"

"Well, who's getting drunk?" Craig asked. "We're having a drink."

Stan was fine with this. Performance, being _on _… he hated it. The first thing he'd learned in his first journalism seminar all those Septembers ago had been: Never let yourself be quoted; never let yourself be photographed. The idea that for eternity pictures of him standing in Butters' old bedroom looking cock-eyed at a computer monitor would be available to all and sundry bothered him. He hadn't realized it until Craig had shown up without a camera, but there it was.

They talked about graduation, or the lack thereof. "There's no way I'm pulling it off this year," Craig announced. This was somewhere into his next beer, the beer after the beer he'd been on when Stan had arrived. "I've got all these incompletes, man. Teachers, you know. They just … sometimes you can talk your way into a B or something, just let it go … but some of this shit, some of this shit that I'm finishing is shit from my sophomore — my _freshman_ year. I accepted a long time ago that I'd be a third-semester senior. So be it."

It was inconceivable to Stan, this concept of not being finished. It bothered him when it was Kenny, but it surprised him when it was Craig, because Craig seemed so much to have it all together, what with his insidious voyeuristic website. "How can you have managed to get _this_ far and _not_ be graduating?" Stan asked. "I just don't understand." The bartender set another green bottle in front of his face. This was his second. He attacked it.

"Very very simple answer. I don't go to class and I don't do my work."

"But that's pathetic. I mean, complete retards manage to graduate from college." He was thinking of Loren when he said that. But then he added: "I mean, _Kyle_ is going to graduate from college in May, and he can barely put one _foot_ in front of the other." Stan recalled Kyle sulking through dinner, the half-lidded exhaustion with which he had pushed food around his plate. Stan noticed that Craig had shaved since the party. He was prickly, but no longer bearded.

"Oh, but Kyle's not distracted, he's never been the type to get _distracted _… he's pretty focused. You forget, I'm not his best friend, but I've known they guy since I was 4. He's always been intent on things. It's just that he runs too far with it. I'm just plain distracted. I'm not in school, really. I'm a motherfucking artist."

"But you're _in school_, aren't you?"

"Well, yeah." Craig crumpled his empty beer can in his fist. "I mean, I guess so."

"What do you mean, you guess so?"

"I mean, I'm enrolled. It's just … not … happening. Maybe you should come to Manhattan this spring, Marsh." A hand descended on Stan's shoulder, giving him a friendly squeeze of knowing. "You have a good thing going in the Midwest?"

"Well." A week ago, he would have just said 'yes,' probably been quite offended, and gone off on Craig for confusing the Midwest with the great city of Chicago. Now he just stilled, and then shrugged. "We'll see if I can swing it."

"Great." If Craig could seem _happy_ about anything, he might have seemed happy now: "I don't know if you've ever been there."

"Never."

"Well, maybe you should come. ... I mean go. I mean." Craig shrugged. "Whatever, I don't know what I mean. This place is so fucked up. I have to get home."

"Home?" Stan asked. "Like, to your house? But we just got here."

"Not home to my parents' place," Craig corrected. "Home to the city."

"Um."

"New York," Craig filled in, impatient with Stan's lack of comprehension. "I gotta get home to the city."

"Oh."

"When are you going back?"

"Uh." Stan didn't know why he couldn't make good sentences all of a sudden. It was like his mind was occupied, and yet he really wasn't thinking of _anything_. He drank beer to help him complete a thought. It worked. "My ticket is booked for the 15th. But I was going to go back early. I told my mom after New Year's. I just don't know."

"Can't take it anymore?"

"Not another minute," Stan said, although now that it was just him and Craig and a couple of beers, he felt no pressing need to get out of Colorado anymore.

"I know. This place is awful. Everything closes by 1, for one thing, and that's a stretch. "

"I think Walmart's open all night."

"Oh, that's classy."

With his beer finished, Stan signaled the bartender, who mouthed _one minute_ at him, and went back to making a drink for another patron. "Come on, dude." Stan sighed. "You _know_ this place. You're from here. None of this should be surprising to you. It's sad, but at least in South Park there is the promise of being able to leave it and go far, far away. Whatever you tell me about Manhattan, where could you possibly go from there? You're stuck, aren't you? Don't you ever feel just a little bit stuck?"

"No."

"Just a little bit?"

"No."

"You have to be lying."

Craig shook his head. "I don't lie. There's no scandal in lying. No one pays attention to you if you lie."

"Can I help you?"

Stan looked up at the looming figure of the bartender, balding with a dull yellow ponytail — not blond, yellow. And he was balding. Stan almost giggled. Almost.

"Um, yep." Stan pushed his empty Rolling Rock bottle toward the bartender.

"Another of these?" the old man asked. He was wiping a glass with a dish towel — a filthy dish towel. Beside Stan, Craig shuddered.

"Uh, no, I…" Stan paused. "What are you having?"

"Me?" Craig asked. "I have to fly tomorrow morning at 7:30. I'm not having anything else."

"Aw, _that's_ no fun."

"Should I come back when you're decided? I got other customers in here," the bartender drawled.

"Uh, um. No, just bring me a shot of, um … no, a double … of tequila?"

"What kind of tequila?"

Stan looked at Craig. Craig said nothing, didn't gesture, didn't emote, just sat there. "Cheap?" Stan asked.

"Salt and lime?"

"What?" Stan glanced at Craig again. Then he looked back to the bartender. "I'm drinking alone. What am I going to do with salt and lime wedges?"

"Coming right up."

"Look, Marsh." Craig yanked Stan's attention back from the man fixing his drink. "This place isn't me. I don't feel any connection to it. I come back two weeks a year. My life is there now."

"I, um." Stan felt himself at a loss. He wasn't sure why he was having problems describing his feelings, but he was. He tried to remember the Stan Marsh who spent the night before he flew home in bed with Loren, wishing like hell he didn't have to go back. _That_ Stan Marsh had been dreading pouring his heart out to Kyle; _this_ Stan Marsh was feeling inadequate for disagreeing with Craig Tucker on the minute point of how at-home one could feel in a redneck mountain town after spending three years in the big city. He felt betrayed by Craig, but he felt _attracted_ to Craig's attitude. Too many thoughts were stirring around his head, just in time to start drinking his tequila.

Craig cleared his throat. "Oh, wait. Okay, the most _ridiculous_ thing happened at that party at Butters'. Can I tell you? It's kind of disturbing. This is your disclaimer."

Stan did not flinch. Very little disturbed him — or so he thought. He'd seen his best friend smash his own hand with a searing pan; if that didn't shatter him, what could? "Okay," he agreed. "Tell me."

"Ike Broflovski _hit on me_."

Stan's eyes widened. "_What_?"

"It's true."

There was nothing to be said. Around them, the balding bartender was running the blender, fixing someone a syrupy margarita. Craig tugged on Stan's shirt.

"Hello?" he asked. "You're either shocked to speechlessness, or it's just to be expected."

"Both, I guess." With a trembling hand, Stan grasped for his drink. "Well, I hope you turned him down, dude. He's, like … 15."

"Even if I was _into _little boys, like if that were my thing, I wouldn't dream of messing with a kid whose dad once literally sued _everyone_. It's just off-putting, right? I mean, don't you want to ask me what he did?"

Stan shook his head. "No, no. Ike is—"

"Like a brother to you?"

"No!" Stan began shaking. "No, no. Um, not exactly. Not _exactly_."

"Well, some cliché like that, anyway."

"Yeah, sure," Stan agreed. He surprised himself by downing the rest of his tequila in one gulp without choking.

XXX

Craig paid Stan's tab. Stan wanted to tell Craig that this didn't impress him, that Loren _always_ paid his tab — but then Stan, even with his logic impinged by tequila and flattery, realized that he could no longer count on anyone to pay his tab, so he thanked Craig with sincerity.

"No problem," Craig replied. "It's the least I can do."

"The least you could have done is let me buy my own drinks. Or not called me at all." Stan smiled. They were outside the bar, only a streetlamp and the copious neon signs in scant cloistered windows illuminating them in the frigid night. A dull pulse reverberated from the laughter and televisions back inside the bar, but outside, they were alone. "But I'm glad you called me," Stan continued, not caring if his jacket got dirty as he leaned against Craig's (parents') car. "I'm so glad I got to see you, dude. It feels like it's been forever."

"I think it's only been since summer. I came home for a week this summer," Craig reminded him.

"Did I see you then?"

"I don't know. I think Wendy had people over. Maybe it was Sally. Doesn't matter. That week kind of sucked."

"Did _this_ week kind of suck?" Stan asked. He kept having to adjust his balance on the sedan; he didn't want to fall over, and he hated that it was taking more effort to remain upright than he wanted it to. The neon lights of Corona signs blinded him mildly; in the blue wash of advertising Craig looked … well, he looked almost Canadian, sallow and narrow-eyed. How sick was that? Stan's cheeks felt hot.

"No, this week was okay, I'm glad I got to see Token; I mean, I went to Boston in October, but one can never get enough Token."

"…And are you glad you saw me?" Stan arched his brows and pouted.

"Sure."

"You mean it?"

"Uh." Craig rolled his eyes. "Yes."

"Me too."

Stan licked his lips, and fixed them to Craig's. Craig's lips were not soft, really, and Stan liked soft lips, but he also liked a little bit of facial hair, and for the brief moment of their kiss he enjoyed Craig's stubble on his chin. But before Stan could even manage his tongue past Craig's teeth, Craig was holding Stan's face away from his.

"Okay," Craig said. He took his hands from Stan's face and put them on Stan's shoulders, and then he pushed Stan back — he wasn't rough, but he was serious. Not coy — serious. "That's enough, cowboy," he said. "Unhand me."

"You just unhanded yourself," Stan said. "I don't understand."

"There's nothing to not understand," Craig replied.

"You don't want to—"

"Absolutely not."

"But you paid for my drinks," Stan whined.

"I was being nice."

"You invited me out."

"Yep, and I'm beginning to regret it."

"You, you." Stan didn't know what to say. He was feeling that drunken wooziness again, so he backed up to Craig's car, and let himself balance against it. "You said Ike Broflovski wasn't your type!" Stan protested.

"He isn't my type. He's a little boy."

"But I'm a big boy!"

"Yeah, but you're still a boy," Craig pointed out.

"What are you saying? I don't understand."

"You understand. I don't like boys."

"But, you—"

"I'm going to brush this off as you being kind of drunk, Marsh." Craig took his hand. "Don't misconstrue this," he added as he did.

Craig led Stan back into the bar, and abandoned him at a booth against the wall. Before he departed he brought Stan a cola with too much ice, and a cherry floating at the top.

"There you go, big guy," Craig said. His face was plastered with a look of utter defeat. "Drink that up. Don't go until you do."

"What are you gonna do?" Stan moaned. "You can't just leave me sitting here!"

"Sure I can. Can I trust you to call someone?"

"No!"

"Okay." Craig was scowling. "I'll go after I see you take a sip."

Stan hated the taste of his cola — it was weak and watery, choked with ice. He didn't want to know if the cherry was a cruel kind of joke or just flung in there by the bartender, hoping no one would complain about the flat, tasteless soda he was apparently fine with serving to well-paying customers. Stan resented this. Who was he to listen to Craig? But being intoxicated, he was suggestible.

"That's great." Craig had his hands in his pockets; he wasn't going to touch Stan before he left. "I don't know when I'll see you again, Marsh. But good luck with graduating, and, um, if you come to the city, call me."

"You mean it?" Stan asked.

"Yeah, I mean it." He gave a weak wave with both hands. "Make sure you call someone. Someone responsible. Don't call Kenny McCormick. Finish your Coke. … And definitely don't call Kyle," he added as an afterthought.

Stan returned the wave. Tears came to his eyes as Craig left, and he banished them with soda.

XXX

It was Ike behind the creaking door; he'd knocked three times, even once using the special knock he'd learned by listening to Stan do it back when he and Kyle were in high school, but there'd been no reply, and Ike took this for an invitation to come in. Kyle wasn't often shy about being busy, or occupied, and generally he did want attention. "Penny for your thoughts?" Ike tucked the door back into its jam behind himself; he was on tip-toes.

"Really?" Kyle asked. He had been lying on the bed in the dark with the blinds drawn, his lighter in his fist on his belly, making it spark to light and catching the flame in his left hand, extinguishing it. He stopped when his brother came in. "My thoughts are only worth a penny?"

"That's all I can afford to pay you, really. Mom and Dad only give me $20 a week in allowance."

"Awesome. You know they give _me_ nothing."

"I'm sure they think it's best for you."

"I'm sure my shrink's told them it just enables me." Kyle sat up in bed, tossing his lighter onto the floor. "Can I do something for you?"

"That was actually what I came to ask _you_."

Kyle shrugged. "I want to tell you something, but I can't really think of what to say."

"Sorry?"

"It's okay, it'll come to me." Kyle drew the covers up to his waist. "Do you want to sit?" He pointed to the swivel chair in front of his computer.

Ike shook his head. "I think I'm fine. Um. … We haven't really talked lately."

"Well, sorry if I wasn't in a talking mood. I find out you've been devirginized, and the next thing I know, I'm being fucking strapped down. So that was okay." Despite the heft of his words, Kyle's tone was static. His pitch neither fell nor rose.

"So, uh." Ike shifted his weight. He rubbed his hands together. "What'd you do after Butters'?"

Kyle shrugged, like the question bored him. "Went back to Trish's."

"Well, don't tell me you fucked _Trish_."

"No, Kenny fucked Trish," Kyle clarified. "I fucked Kenny."

"Whoa." Ike took a step back, eyes widening. He looked behind himself, spotted Kyle's desk chair, and sat himself in it. "I thought Kenny was straight."

"He is." Kyle scowled. "But you never thought _Kyle_ was straight."

Ike was unsure of whether he was being asked a question; he figured he had better play this like it _was_ one: "I thought Kyle was too interesting to allow himself not to defy categorization."

"No." Kyle sat up. "Kyle is too unstable to will himself to keep his dick in his pants. And he hates the third person. It's a vile, pretentious, _murderous_ set of pronouns. What is this, a damn story?"

"Murderous, really?" Ike asked.

"Whatever happened to direct, personal communication?" Kyle replied.

"Oh, okay. Is the third person why you're so lonely?"

"No, I'm lonely because I don't have any _friends_. Nobody wants to be friends with me. I'm toxic to people."

"This sounds a bit dramatic."

"Being dramatic doesn't make it untrue."

Ike got up out of the desk chair, and went to sit on the bed with his older brother.

Kyle inched away, butting up against his headboard. He removed his sunglasses, and flung them on the bedside table, next to an alarm clock, a florescent lamp, an array of condoms in square, crinkled wrappers, and several pill bottles of varying sizes and heights. The glasses knocked over a bottle, and it fell to floor. Its loose cap knocked off, dozens of pill capsules spilled out. Kyle took a glance at the mess; he was not bothered by it. "My life is completely fucked up, Ike," he said.

Ike didn't see the need to argue. "I know, man, and I feel bad. You know I feel bad, but I'm, like ... I'll help you however I can but there's not really a lot I can—"

"I keep Dexedrine in the linen closet."

Ike shrugged. "Why the linen closet?"

"They won't let me keep it in my room. _She_ won't." There was no need for specification or elaboration. "I think she counts those pills, sometimes. It's beyond me why I should be able to go off on my own to school and medicate myself, and then I come back here and have to deal with the _humiliation_ of having a million tiny capsules dispensed by my mother and father." Kyle sighed. His eyes were bloodshot and his lids bruised, the result of sleepless nights and silent self-punishment, unspeakable brawls at collegiate house parties and silent, drawn-out sobbing. It made him look tired, and in fact, he was exhausted.

"So if you go grab me the bottle," Kyle concluded, commanding more than asking, "at least my prints won't be on it."

"You're paranoid. No one's counting pills. Or dusting for prints."

"Yes she is! Do you know that at school, everything is distributed by my RA?"

"I thought you said you medicated yourself at school."

Kyle frowned. "You can buy things from people. Do you really think I stick to a proscribed regimen?"

"I almost wish you would!"

"Just please get me five Dexedrine and we can move on from this," Kyle said. "I feel miserable."

"Did it ever occur to you that fucking around with your drug regimen might just make you _more_ fucked up?"

Kyle pushed himself up onto his knees, and pointed a dramatic finger at his brother. "Did it ever occur to you that I'm not depressive?"

Ike stood up, and backed toward the door. "I don't know what you are, but the answer is probably not good. Jacking yourself with Dexedrine isn't going to fix anything, Kyle."

Kyle waited. Ike stared back at him, a mean look on his face. It made Kyle wish for his baby brother — the one who toddled after him and watched Jim Lehrer with a retarded look of glee and intrigue. He didn't want to know this stern gay kid who knew everything and wasn't shy about sharing it.

Their staring match was interrupted by Kyle's phone — the strangled crowing of a rooster came roaring from its little speakers, trying the best it could to alert its owner of a phone call. Kyle glared at the phone, seized it, and read the name on the display screen.

"You look disgusted," Ike observed. "Who is it?"

Kyle shut off the ringer, forcing the phone to voicemail. He didn't even open it. "It's just Kenny," he said.

"See? You _totally_ have friends, Kyle, okay? Kenny's trying to call you."

"I don't want to talk to Kenny. He's trashy."

"Trashy or not, he's your friend. He'd help you if he could."

"I know he would. But he can't because he's trashy," Kyle wailed. "I don't want to talk about my friends, because I have, like, two."

"Eric Cartman is kind of your friend," Ike said. "…_Ish_."

Kyle just groaned.

"And Stan is your friend."

"Don't you get me started on that rapist bastard!" Kyle cried. Then he flopped back down. "Don't even say his name in this house."

"Kyle—"

"Get the fuck out of my room, Ike. I don't need your help. I'll just fucking OD on something expired I have in my desk."

"That's a really awful—" Ike was interrupted by the phone beginning to ring a second time.

"Oh, for the love of…" Kyle reached over to shut it off again.

"Kyle…" Ike reached out, only to have his arm shoved away.

"I'm glad you brought him up." Kyle sat up again. Ike wished he would fall asleep, or at least calm down. "You still haven't apologized to me for doing _that_."

"I have nothing to apologize for."

Kyle rolled his eyes.

Ike sighed. "I just want to have one thing, Ky, one thing that's my own. Don't begrudge me this one thing."

"You fucked my best friend!"

"He fucked me," Ike corrected.

"Typical Stan," Kyle spat. "Not man enough to take it up the ass after all these years."

"Whatever, I didn't want to fuck him, he was _ridiculously_ drunk at the time. I was sober. Mostly. Mostly sober. Sober enough for ass sex, which is more sober than _you_ are right now."

"I'd be more sober if you'd get me some Dexedrine, Ike, _please—_" Kyle clasped his hands. He shook them in Ike's face. "Look at me. Look at me, Ike!"

Ike listened, gazing right into Kyle's eyes, trying not to flinch at how bloodshot and red and raw they looked. "I'm looking at you."

"Thank you."

Ike grasped his brother by the shoulders. "Okay, here is what I think. I think you need to lie down and _try_ to rest and let the drugs pass through your system, and if it takes a couple of days it takes a couple of days. " Ike paused. He kept looking at Kyle, wondering if this was getting though to him. "I also think you and Stan need to talk to each other, but not until you detox from this. You're upset, and I get it, and I also get that when you get upset you get scary, and that when you get scary Mom and Dad go a little nuts with the drugs. … And I also think you need to lay off Mom and Dad. They're good people. They're just not sure what to do."

"So they do this?" Kyle pointed at himself.

"You and Stan need to talk," Ike reiterated. "That's my final position. Calm thyself down, and call Stan. Not before!" Ike let go of his brother. "And I'm out. I gotta go to bed. I have practice tomorrow."

"Can I tell you something?" Kyle rasped.

"Of course." Ike paused, his hand already on the doorknob.

Kyle cleared his throat. "I think if you wanted something that was 'your own' " — Kyle delighted in embellishing this with waggles of his index fingers — "you should have done someone other than Stan. Beyond that you knew it would hurt me—"

"I never meant for you to find out!"

"—you picked the one thing that could never be _just yours_, Ike. You forget, little dude, I've had about 8 million hours of psychotherapy. So allow me a little amateur analysis: I think you _knew_ I'd find out. I mean, in this town? Not even counting for your own oversight? Get real. _Come on_." Kyle lowered his voice: "You wanted to _punish_ me, like, to take something away from me like I take things away from you. Only you forget, _again_, that I'm not forcing you to be here. You're in my room talking to me of your own accord. I never want you to deal with these things. I don't want to put pressure on you. Okay? I'm _sick_, Ike, I can't _help it_. But you _wanted_ me to suffer." He raised it again. "So, good job. I feel like about as bad as I ever have, and I've felt pretty bad about a lot of things in my time — inasmuch as I can ever _feel_ anything — so well done."

"Kyle…"

"Go to bed. I'll try to detox."

Ike didn't budge.

"Go ahead. Come on. You have practice tomorrow. You just go out there and be a normal little kid. I'll lay here by myself and wish _I_ were the smart one and _you_ were the fucked-up one. Sweet dreams."

"I hate you, Kyle!" Ike burst out. "You're fucking cruel!"

"Yeah, well." Kyle sniffed. "I'm not the only one. Insanity's in the blood, but cruelty — that's learned."

Wiping his eyes, Ike didn't bother to keep himself from crying. "You want cruelty? Okay. Sometimes I wish you _would_ kill yourself! Then I could be normal and my whole life would be about regular stuff and I wouldn't have to deal with _you_! You fucking ruin everything, Kyle! You've single-handedly ruined my entire life!"

Ike slammed the door as he left, and the reverberations shook the second storey. But nothing was disturbed; their parents were heavy sleepers, and everything that might have fallen off the wall had shattered long ago.

Through the walls, Kyle heard his little brother crying. In his own bed, Kyle curled into a fetal form and began to bite his nails. He knew Ike could hear him crying, too, but he also knew he would stop by the time he tasted blood. His mind turned to his missed calls.

* * *

So. Every time I submit I chapter of this, I live in fear that this is the chapter where I totally went overboard and wrote something truly crazy. My god, I hope that wasn't this chapter. I mean, I hope it wasn't any chapter, but -- you know.


	9. Chapter 9

During Stan's second beer after Craig left, the sound of mooing filled the bar, gaining him a handful of spiteful glances before he picked it up.

"Where are you?" It was Kenny's voice on the phone, clear and throaty. Kenny always sounded intrigued; his voice had a little up-tick to it that Stan could visualize anywhere, any time. Like Kyle's — even like Cartman's. Sometimes in times of crisis Stan shut his eyes and heard Kyle speaking to him — new things, things he'd never said before. Kyle was his conscience, maybe. When Stan tried to hear Ike all he heard was baby talk. "Don't kick the baby, don't kick the baby" — protests against Kyle's childhood sadism. But now Kyle was a masochist. Things were so messed up.

"Hello?" Kenny repeated. "Where are you? Stan?"

"I'm at the bar." Stan didn't need to specific. "Craig just left; I have been drinking, Kenny. Drinking drinking drinking."

"Good job. We're about to start drinking."

"Who's about to start drinking?" Stan asked.

"Me and the boys."

"Kyle?"

"Mmm, I can't get in touch with him, actually. His phone keeps going to voice mail after two rings, like he sees I'm calling and keeps shutting it off, but isn't turning off his phone."

Stan played Kyle's voicemail greeting to himself; it was crisp and professional, balanced and non-threatening: "This is Kyle Broflovski. Please leave a message and I will return your call at my earliest convenience. Thank you." Not dramatic or psychotic or weepy or harmful. Just Kyle's confident voice, unburdened. Stan was jealous that Kenny had gotten to hear it that evening, a few times at that; if Stan had called, would Kyle have turned the phone off entirely?

"Do you know where he is?" Kenny asked.

Stan considered that Ike would know. "I saw him at dinner," he answered. "He was pretty out of it. He's probably at home. If he wasn't at home his mom would have called me hysterical by now."

"Okay. Hold on." For a minute the call was full of muffled voices in conference. "So sit tight," Kenny said as he returned. "We'll be there in a few."

"Hooray," Stan said. He snapped his phone shut.

XXX

"What took you so long?" Stan asked when Kenny slipped into the booth across from him.

"What are you talking about? We spoke like 10 minutes ago."

"Is it just you?"

"No." Kenny poked into his vest pocket, extracting a cigarette. "Cartman's parking. Butters is with him." Taking a first drag, he glanced down at the four empty glasses sitting on the table. "Is that all?"

Stan snorted. "Nah. One of those was a Coke, but Craig bought me a bunch before."

"Classy." Exhale. "Really didn't think Craig swung that way."

"He doesn't. But I took a stab at him anyway. He was not delighted. He rejected me. Me!" Stan began to laugh. "No one rejects _me_! I lay bitches to _waste_, Kenny. Do you know how many notches I have on the doorframe of my closet at school? Take a guess."

"Okay, I can see that _someone's_ dranked."

"One-hundred seventy-three!" Stan heaved his shoulders. "When I get back remind me to add another one."

"You're counting who? Craig, the bartender, Jesus?"

"Only if Jesus is Canadian."

"Do not seem to recall Jesus being Canadian in my distant personal experience." Kenny set his cigarette down on an ashtray he'd spotted at the corner of the table. It teetered a bit before settling. He stuck up a flannelled arm. "Eric! Butters!" he screamed. "Yo!"

Cartman clobbered over, Butters dancing behind him. Stan scowled at the way Butters tiptoed around defrosting messes of melted ice and pebbles of salt with grace and dignity. Cartman wasted no time surveying the surroundings, towering over the table, casting a shadow across Kenny's puffy vest and the ashtray.

"What are we drinking?" he asked.

Kenny shrugged. "Cokes, apparently."

"Shut up! Only that one was a Coke. And actually it was a Pepsi." Stan pointed to the single empty glass with a pool of dirty water in the bottom and a sheen of condensation that had soaked the paper coaster underneath it. "These three were just Bud on tap."

"Light?" Butters asked.

"Ugh, probably," Cartman scoffed. "What else do _homosexuals_ drink?"

"Tequila," Butters and Stan responded, overlapping. Butters blushed; Stan turned away.

"Okay." Kenny stabbed his cigarette against the bottom of the ashtray, and left it smoldering to death, crinkled near the filter. He hoisted himself from the booth, around Cartman and Butters. "I need a drink. Stan, do you want more, or are you satisfied?"

"I get satisfaction from _nothing_." Stan looked into his wallet, and thrust a decaying 10-dollar bill at Kenny.

Kenny pocketed it. "Eric, join me?"

"Eh, why the fuck not?" Cartman shrugged.

Butters climbed into the seat Kenny had vacated. "I'll just stay here with Stan," he said.

"No one asked you, Butters."

"That reminds me, Eric. Do I recall something about you owing me a drink? From that time I let you throw a party at my parents' house?"

"Ugh. Fine, Butters, Jew me because I asked you to host one _tiny_ party at your place. What can I get for you? A cosmo?"

"Just a tonic water, please."

"That's gay," Cartman said, shuffling away.

With a shrug, Kenny followed.

"Are you straight-edge, or something?" Stan asked. "I forget if I asked you already. Did I ask you already? Sometime?"

"Maybe. Um." Tugging his scarf off, Butters beamed at Stan. "No, I ain't straight-edge, nothing like that. I just don't — you know, it's _weird_…"

"What's weird? Hanging out with Cartman?"

Butters slipped out of his pea coat, folding it into a compact roll and tucking it between himself and the wall. "Nah, I see Eric all the time at school. I just feel like in a group of four people, _someone_ should keep sober."

"You don't, like, have to lie to me, dude. I don't care if you drink or not."

"What is it with all you boys?" Butters asked. "No one cares a bit what you drink or don't at school, then I come back and it's like, a whole politics of drinking."

"Maybe it's 'cause there's nothing else to do here," Stan posited.

"Maybe so." Butters cleared his throat, rolled up his shirtsleeves. "I was hoping you'd be sober yourself, actually. I was regretting we didn't get any time to talk just us since you've been here."

"We talked at your house. Maybe. I choose not to remember a lot about that evening."

"Eh, it wasn't so awful. Ah, yeah, maybe we did talk a little, but not really. I wanna know how you're doing. A couple of nights of parties and bars don't constitute a friendship. Eric says you broke up with the boy you were seeing. I'm awful sorry."

"Ugh, I'm not."

"Why not?" Butters cocked his head.

"Because, Butters, he was just some dumb, hot, rich guy, okay, he pissed me off and I just don't even want to talk about it, okay? That guy was like a fucking harpy. The only time I could stand him was when I was like fucking him and even then I had to fucking gag him to make him stop talking. He was like a fucking woman. Such a fucking stupid woman. With a cock."

"Well, I can see how that'd be a problem."

"Yes."

"Can I tell you about my boyfriend? His name's—"

"I really don't care."

Butters recoiled. "Gosh, you've become a mean drunk over the past week."

"I've had a shitty fucking week."

They sat in silence until Kenny and Cartman returned with drinks. "Here you go, queer," Cartman said as he handed Stan his drink. "One Bud Light."

"I wasn't drinking light," Stan bitched. "Can someone please get these fucking glasses off the table?"

"Yeah, the guy who fucking downed four diet Cokes can do it." Cartman shoved his way into the booth next to Stan, sucking down something out of a can.

Stan did not correct Cartman in regard to the matter of what he had been drinking previously.

"Can we toast?" Butters asked.

Uniformly, Stan, Kenny, and Cartman answered, "No."

"There's really nothing to celebrate," Kenny said. He was drinking Coors straight from a brown bottle. Stan felt that Kenny looked very natural with a beer in his hand. Kenny looked even more natural with a beer and cigarette, though, so he put the bottle down to pull one out of his pack. "Life is … just, you know, how it always is."

To this sentiment, Butters nodded vigorously, grinning. Then, for no discernible reason, he giggled into his clasped hands. "Aw, I still like you guys!" he cheered.

"That's gay. Hey, Kenny." Cartman grasped at the packet in Kenny's hands. "Give me a cigarette."

"Get your own."

"No, Kenny, give it."

"Get your own, Eric, we don't even smoke the same brand."

"I left mine in the car, Kenny, give me a cigarette."

"Say please and maybe I'll give you a cigarette."

Cartman snorted. "That's ridiculous. I'm not going to say please. Only faggots say 'please.' "

"Oh, that's not true, Eric."

"Shut up, Butters, it is so."

Shrugging it off, Butters took a sip of his tonic water.

"Butters, you can't just let people talk like that," Stan said.

"Talk like what?" Kenny asked.

"Like homophobic retards."

"Well, I don't think they're homophobic retards," Butters explained. "Although Stan is _right_, Eric, it _isn't_ very _nice,_" he added, narrowing his eyes at Cartman.

"Whatever, Butters. You know you're a fag, that's all I'm saying. If Stan still smoked he'd give me a cigarette."

"Not if you're calling me a fag I wouldn't!"

"Fine, fag, whatever. If _Kyle_ were here he'd give me a cigarette."

"Well, he's not." Finally, Kenny managed to get the thing lit, and set it in the ashtray. "And he wouldn't have any to give you anyway."

"Yeah, you're right, Kenny. He's such a damn Jew with his cigarettes." A wry smile crept across Cartman's face. "But at least he's not a whiny little fag."

"That's it!" Stan cried. "Shut the fuck up! You're just trying to piss me off!"

The smile fell from Cartman's lips; now his brows were arched in annoyance. "Oh, fuck me, Stan. You need to get off the rag already. What is it with you and that word? You know it doesn't mean anything."

"Yes it does!" Stan began to pound his fist on the table. "It's fucking insulting and it pisses me off!"

"Okay." Kenny flicked some ash off of his cigarette. "Step off, dude."

"No, I will not step off. It's mean! How would you like to spend five years of your adolescence hearing people say that word with a scowl on their face and wondering if you said something, what would they do? What would you have done, fat ass? If you knew?"

"Well, um." Cartman rolled his eyes. "Considering Butters told me you guys were _fucking_, I _totally_ knew, not to mention you're a gay little _bitch_, and I don't give a shit if you're gay, Stan, seriously. Go tattoo it on your face, see if I care. I mean, I'll totally rip on you, it's funny as shit, but I'm not responsible for the weird shit you make up in your head to tell yourself you're special. Especially after you fucking ran away to Chicago with all the other hippies and pretend you're somehow above us and don't give us a chance to rip on you for being a self-important pussy instead of a homo. So, faggot, get over yourself."

"No offense, Stan. But, _burn_." Butters raised his drink. "Right?"

"I heard it." Kenny raised his bottle and clinked it against Butters' glass. "See, that's what Eric has going for him, he just says it like it is. And I — wait. You guys _fucked_?"

"No," Stan grunted.

"Yeah, a bunch. In high school." Butters was beet-red.

"Why did I never see it before?" Kenny asked. "Now I can't un-see it."

"It's a private matter," Butters replied. "_Was_ a private matter, anyway. Thank you, Eric."

"Hey! I kept that shit to myself for like five years, Butters, _seriously_."

"Yeah, but I bet you only didn't tell because you thought no one'd ever believe you."

"I can't believe this." Stan had his head in his hands, eyes clenched. "I'm going to — I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't deal with this anymore, I have to get out of here—"

"Oh, calm down." Kenny tapped his package of cigarettes against the table. "No one's _judging_ you. And we're just ripping on you, dude. Don't take it so hard."

"I hate this place, I hate it, I want to _leave_ now. Why is this happening to me? Of all the decent people—"

Stan was interrupted by the jangle of a cell phone — not an animal's strangled cry, but a tinny reproduction of "Ghetto Supastar." Over the ringtone, Butters began to sing "Islands in the Stream."

Kenny flipped the phone to his ear without sparing it a glance. "McCormick."

Cartman reached over the table to clamp a hand over Butters' mouth.

"Hey." The joy drained from Kenny's voice. "I'm just out with the guys." Pause. The incessant muzzle of a distorted voice. Kenny sighed. "Eric, Butters, Stan. … Stan. … I've known him since I was 4. Or something. … No, he's gay. No, not like — no, they're _friends_, I think, it's just irrelevant. … Yeah, I got paid today. Hells yeah. I got you covered, baby. Yeah, I don't know. Where am I supposed to get doughnuts at this hour? The gas station? Baby, no — I don't—"

Kenny yanked the phone from his ear, scowling and glancing at the screen.

"Baby, I gotta take this. No, it's not business, but I've been trying to get him on the phone all night. Ugh, well, just _be patient_, I'm putting you on hold. _No_, it's not like that! … Okay, Tricia, I'm hanging up. Don't be jealous. That's retarded. … It's retarded and stupid and I'm not gonna do this. Okay? Good-bye. Get your own fucking doughnuts, like I want you feeding my kid that shit anyway. Good night."

"Is that Kyle?" Stan asked. Butters shushed him.

"Hey, we wanted you to come out with us," Kenny said casually, into the phone, clutching at his cigarette poised over a coaster, ash threatening to drop to the table. The undecipherable voice on the other side of the connection sounded panicked. Kenny rolled his eyes. "Take a deep breath," he suggested. "_Again_."

"Kyle." Stan's hand shot out for Kenny's cell phone; Kenny had to dodge. "Is that Kyle? I need to talk to him, you don't understand—"

Kenny was still on the phone, his cigarette now back in the ashtray as he plugged his free ear with a finger, trying to block out the noise of the bar, and Stan. "Dude, calm down. … I _know_, dude, I know just _saying_ calm down doesn't help. … Are you out of your fucking mind? I'm not going to give you that. … _Kyle_, you owe me a _lot_ of money, and — I _know_ you can't pay me, I'm not _asking_ for it. … Well you're fucking hysterical, dude! Listen to yourself!"

"He needs me," Stan rasped. "Kenny, give me the phone."

"Stan, _shhhh_."

"Butters, _shhhh_ yourself!"

"If Kyle needed you, he'd of called you," Butters noted.

"Ugh, fuck it," Kenny groaned. He lurched to his feet atop the seat of the booth they were sitting at. "No, not _you_, it's just these fuckers won't shut up so I gotta go outside. Hold on, hold on…" After stepping over Cartman's thighs, Kenny hopped off the seat and ran outside, little bells jingling as he slammed into the door.

For a moment Stan wasn't sure what to do, what to ask. He had so many questions. But when he tried to get up and follow Kenny, he realized he was too drunk to stand without collapsing, and things began to get woozy. With a deft tug at his T-shirt, Butters had Stan back at his eye level.

"Just hold on a minute," Butters said, trying to sooth, proffering Stan's half-empty beer as a means of distraction. "This isn't your phone call."

"Butters!" Stan swatted at him and missed, depth perception skewed. "Fuck you!"

"I got a boyfriend, so no thank you," Butters said matter-of-factly. "If it was meant to be your business, Kyle woulda called you."

"It is my business! He's my best friend! Why am I left out?"

"Run away from shit, fag, and you get left out." Cartman shrugged. "Like you really want to get tangled up in his Jew drama bullshit anyway."

"Will you quit it with that? I did _not_ run away from anything!"

"Well, we all live in Colorado," Butters said. "You don't."

"I do too live here!"

"Three months a year plus change, Stan. That's not a lot."

Stan hardened his mouth and tried to subject Butters to his most chilling stare of hatred; Butters did not yield, and instead took a sip of his drink. So Stan tried the same thing on Cartman.

"Oh, cut that shit out," Cartman chided. "You're too drunk to look serious. You look like a fucking lapdog."

"Fuck you!" Stan replied.

"Ah, yes." Cartman nodded. "Absolutely devastating. Well done."

Kenny returned, clutching his cell phone in his left hand, palming it with his right, visibly shaking. "So that went pretty shittily," he said. "Eric, dude. Can I drag you away from the bar for a minute?"

Cartman grunted an affirmative. "Anything beats watching Stan act like a wounded gay little bitch."

"I'm not a bitch! He is my best friend, don't you understand? He means _everything_ to me!"

"Well, if he's your best friend, why don't you tell him that getting ripped on amphetamines isn't going to cancel _out_ the lithium, it's more like to cause him to overdose, and—" Kenny halted mid-thought, a pang of realization hitting him. "Oh, _crap_."

"What?" Stan demanded. "Kenny, _what_?"

"What nothing," Kenny said hastily. "Eric, we should…" He trailed off.

"Oh, fuck me," Cartman growled. "_This_ again? I don't have time for this shit again."

"What shit?" Stan kept pressing. Lurching over Butters, he grabbed the collar of Kenny's vest. "I am not fucking around so just _tell me_!"

"Maybe you wanna sober up or something first," Kenny suggested.

"I don't care, Kenny, I don't—"

"What? Fuck this," Cartman interrupted, exasperated. "Stan, your dear super best friend ever in the whole world Jewfag life partner is emotionally impaired and kind of a diva. So like over Thanksgiving me and Kenny—"

"I was there, too."

"—and _Butters_ went over and we found Kyle like half passed-out puking up roofies _which Kenny gave him_ even though _he knows_ that he'd never get paid which is maybe a bad move if you gotta send a kid to college in 18 years but _hey_, don't let's assume Kenny can plan shit out seeing as he's like dropped out of community college to sell drugs." Cartman put his hands on his hips. "Or, like, something."

"Yeah, I think that about covers it." Kenny shot Cartman a dirty look.

"Well, someone had to tell him, Kenny. So anyway, we took him to Hell's Pass, right, but blah blah blah they had him committed or something and his bitch mom had to sign whatever and like, I don't know, that's the thing, the end. Good story, right? Well, unless you want that shit to go down again we should go put a stop to this crap. Time's of the essence. Tick-tock-tick-tock. C'mon, Kenny. I can drive."

"I'm awful sorry, Stan." Butters grabbed Stan's shoulder, wondering whether he should need to keep Stan from following Cartman and Kenny to the car. But Stan stayed put, look of stunned pain on his face.

"I didn't know that," Stan muttered. "I — I don't know anything anymore."

Butters slipped an arm around Stan's shoulders. He slid his other hand into the front pocket of Stan's jeans. "Ugh, these pants are awful tight on you. Hold on, I'm just getting your keys."

"My keys? Why?"

"I'll drive you home. And we should probably get some water in you. Come on, Stan."


	10. Chapter 10

Stan pounded on a yellow door with the adhesive numbers _204_ peeling off right above the peephole. It was about 11 a.m., which seemed early considering Stan was nauseated and his head was throbbing. The cherry-red Rayban Wayfarers he was wearing (a 22nd-birthday gift from Loren) weren't effective enough against the sun. But Stan had lain awake all night, conjuring torturous visions of poor Kyle having his stomach pumped. (That was easy enough; Stan himself had been subjected to such a thing, the night he graduated high school. He'd chugged four 40s of Coors, sucked Butters' cock, took two shots of Jack, watched Kyle strip, watched Kyle jump off the Volmers' deck into the pool, another four shots, and blacked out in Mrs. Volmer's geraniums. All within two hours. Without eating. Epic.)

While caught in the haze of reminiscence, the yellow door flew open; Stan found himself facing a chubby girl — woman, maybe? — with fried-looking bleached hair, limp and straight. She wasn't wearing pants or anything, just a threadbare T-shirt, advertising the Park County High School spring production of _Company_. Stan recognized this the musical that was performed at his high school when he'd been a sophomore, but being able to neither sing nor dance nor act had prevented him from participating. Kenny, on the other hand, had been on the tech crew. Indeed, Stan could tell that this was Kenny's shirt, the one that was splattered with brownish bloodstains on the collar from when Kenny dropped a buzzsaw while attempting to make a wooden bong. (In retrospect, it was a stupid idea.)

"Who're you?" she croaked.

"Stan," he answered. "Um, Stanley Marsh?" He wondered why he said this as if it could be an open question.

"Oh. What from the bar last night."

"Yeah." Stan strained to steal a glimpse into the apartment, Kenny's apartment, around her, but she shifted so he couldn't. "Is Kenny home?" he was forced to inquire.

"Yeah, he's here." She sniffed. "Why, you owe him some money? You can give it here." She stuck out a clammy hand with the words _toilet paper_ smeared across it in magic marker.

"I don't owe him any money," Stan corrected, batting her hand away from him. Women like this made men like Loren seem all the more appealing. "I'm just looking for him. We're friends."

"Oh, friends like that other one I bet," she sneered. "Kenny's in the shower. I'll let you in and you can wait for him. But if I catch you doing any freaky shit I'm calling the cops."

Stan could hardly believe she'd call the police. Trish probably already had a criminal record, and Stan reminded himself that Kenny was, in fact, a drug dealer. As Stan shut the door behind him, rattling the venetian blinds as he did, the reality of the situation sunk in: grease-stained carpet that looked as though it had not been replaced in decades; the television was blaring an episode of _True Life_, the same one Stan had caught his father watching when Butters brought him home the night before. The apartment stunk of Windex and canned pasta. Stan was already trying not to throw up, and the stench didn't help.

Declining to sit, Stan crossed his arms so he could avoid brushing against anything accidentally. "So," he said, listening to the shower running from behind a thin wall. "How'd you and Kenny meet?"

She flipped some hair out of her face, plopped down on the couch, and reached for what looked to be a ball of yarn with two plastic knitting needles plunged through the middle. "I work at the Peppermint Hippo. Well, used to," she corrected, clearing her throat. "Maternity leave."

Stan could barely tell she was pregnant. Or that anyone had been willing to pay this woman to take off her clothing. "When did you guys move in together?"

She laughed a laugh that made Stan feel stupid for even asking. "I don't live in this dump! I live with my parents in Conifer. You think I would raise a baby in Kenny's fucking shithole in fucking South Park? I just sleep over sometimes. What kinda low-class bitch do you think I am?"

It took a moment for Stan to realize he should not answer that question.

When Kenny materialized, his hair was dripping wet, and the shoulders of his T-shirt were soaking. "Hey," he said with a wave. "That was some crazy fucking shit last night."

"Kenny," Stan growled through clenched teeth. "You fucking _son of a bitch_."

Stan barely had Kenny in a chokehold before Trish clocked him in the back of his head with the remote control. It hurt, but Stan didn't care; he was busy slamming Kenny's head against the drywall.

"Stop it!" she shrieked. "Aw, why every time someone comes over they want to kill you, Kenny?"

"I have a propensity for getting killed, I guess," Kenny choked out. Then he kneed Stan in the thigh — not hard enough to seriously hurt him, but Stan let go and doubled over anyway.

"I'm too hungover for this shit!" he panted.

Kenny pushed himself up to his feet. "You know what you need?" he asked. "Something greasy that'll give you a heart attack. Some thin diner-brewed coffee. And probably another drink."

Hoisting himself up against the couch, Stan nodded. "Fine, fine."

"Trish!"

She put her hands on her hips and said, scowling and deadpan, "I'm right here."

"Oh, hey." Kenny flashed her a smile so bright, Stan was certain it was going to blind everyone in the room. "We're going out for a while."

"Well, my mom's coming to pick me up at 2."

"Then I think I'll just miss you," Kenny replied.

"Godammit!" she cried, kicking the couch, right next to where Stan was sitting. "Kenny, you know she wants to talk to you!"

Kenny shrugged. "So? I'll talk to her later, baby."

"Gah!" Trish stormed out of the room, making the entire apartment shake.

"Cool," Kenny said, bending over to grab a pack of cigarettes from the nearest of the wooden crates that together, formed his coffee table. "Now we can grab some food. And talk."

Stan groaned. He was so sick of talking.

XXX

You could still smoke at the Main Street Diner, and that was why Kenny picked it. The waitresses had more inches of hair piled atop their heads than teeth left in their mouths, and they didn't seem to mind the hours-long shifts of customers' cigarettes seeping into their bouffants and yellow smocks. Half of these girls — the menus affectionately called them this, as in "remember to tip your girl," as if a single one of these women wasn't a grandmother — smoked themselves, while on shift.

Stan and Kenny's girl had a cigarette, unlit, dangling from her mouth when she came to take their order.

"I'll buy," Kenny announced with bravado, looking Stan directly in the eyes like he had something to prove.

"I can buy my own $7 sandwich," Stan scoffed.

"Whatever, whatever." Kenny shrugged and handed his menu to the waitress. "Corned beef hash with two eggs — runny yolks, totally dripping, basically raw, like I want salmonella. Cheese on top, biscuit on the side. … Better make it two biscuits." Kenny finished his order by winking at the waitress, producing a lighter from the pocket of his puffy vest, and lighting her cigarette.

"And for you?" she asked through a mouthful of curdling smoke.

Stan thrust his menu into her face. "Surprise me."

Kenny rolled his eyes. "Don't be a shithead. Just order something."

"I'm not hungry."

"He'll have a cheeseburger," Kenny told the waitress. Her purplish hair was threatening to tumble down onto her shoulders. "Fries and coleslaw. Oh, double the coleslaw. He loves coleslaw."

She looked at Stan, as if to ask, _really_? And Stan just nodded back. He did love coleslaw.

They used to come here on weekends, smoke themselves sick, and drink glass after glass of root beer. That was in middle school — when they got older, they preferred to get high in Butters' basement and then roll down the street to the diner, usually without inviting him. Then Stan and Butters had begun their tryst, or affair, or whatever — whatever one calls secret gay sex with someone he doesn't actually like at all — and Stan felt bad about not inviting Butters to come along. But there were more important things to think about on those weird nights — sometimes Stan snuck into his parents' room and dug his dad's flask out of the sock drawer, bringing it along to dump gin in his root beer. More than once he'd vomited in the bathroom. Once after a party at an older kid's, he caught Clyde going down on Red in the men's bathroom. They'd had to move so Stan could barf; there was only one stall.

Now he really didn't want to be here. Kenny was just staring at him, smiling, smoking a cigarette that he tipped into an amber glass ashtray every few minutes.

"Come on," Kenny said, butt of the cigarette barely touching his lips. "It's not so bad."

"It's awful," Stan insisted. "Everything is falling apart on me."

"Kyle is going to be okay, if that's what's bothering you. He's not — he's not like going to kill himself or anything." Then Kenny shrugged, and his smile cracked into a look of utter misery. "Well, he could, I suppose. But not intentionally. It would be like an overdose, I guess, totally involuntary—"

"Stop!" Stan cried. He had to put his hands over his ears, and nearly knocked over a glass of water when he did so. "I don't want to hear _that_, you sick fuck!"

"Well, _come on_. Like, someone who devotes so much intellect to self-destruction is bound to have a couple brushes."

"How could you give him drugs?" Stan dropped his hands from the sides of his head and began to tense them in his napkin. "Why are you such a fucking enabler? I trust you guys to keep him out of trouble for _four years_ and I come back and somehow he's taking _amphetamines_?"

This pissed Kenny off. "Four years?" he asked. "Four years is a long time! Actually, fuck that. You're not fooling anyone — we all know you're not coming back. Four years is turning into forever! Cartman is right. He's a shithead but he's right — you're fucking _gone_. None of us even knows what _planet_ you're on most of the time."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"I don't know! Look at yourself!"

Stan did look down at himself. He was wearing ratty jeans and the same yellow cassette tape shirt he'd been wearing the day before and a nice striped hoodie. He looked okay, he figured. A little hungover, maybe, but somehow guys found that sexy.

"I meant like introspectively or some shit!" Kenny smashed the butt of his exhausted cigarette into the ashtray. "Oh god," he whined, taking another one from his vest pocket. "I can't sit here and solve all your problems anymore! I'm having a kid! I got a girlfriend! People owe me money!"

"I had a boyfriend," Stan snapped, as if that made them the same. "I just dumped him."

"What was that guy like?"

"Pretty whiny."

"Oh."

They looked at each other in awkward silence until their food came. They heard the door of the diner jangling and the whir of the blender mixing milkshakes.

After taking a bite of a biscuit, Kenny softened, and slumped in his seat. "Look," he said, and it felt warm and somewhat relenting. "This is a shitty situation. I sometimes think you had the best instinct of all of us, to leave Colorado. I don't know how you could finagle it. The thought of raising a child here terrifies me — people go crazy here, lose legs here, die here. Sometimes, repeatedly."

"Disappear from here," Stan suggested, thinking of his older sister.

"Is that what you're trying to do?"

That caught Stan off-guard. "What?"

"I don't know," Kenny admitted. "We all wonder sometimes if we'll ever see you again. Then you come back, start shit, make us feel guilty, and leave again. You're fun, and I miss you. But lately you're not so fun, and I don't."

"That doesn't even mean anything!" Stan shouted. Some people at the next booth over stared at him. He looked down at his plate for a moment to avert their eyes, and it occurred to him that he hadn't eaten any of his cheeseburger, and he didn't feel hungry at all. Also, the anemic-looking pickle lying across his pile of french fries smelled like something inedible.

"Ken, okay, I asked you to do one simple thing when I left, and that was make sure Kyle was all right. And you can't even do that! I asked you to look out for him. I didn't mean, like, start giving him drugs that make him even _worse_. I mean, he has doctors for that."

"I tried! Oh, how I tried. But you kind of forgot one thing, actually." A scoop of hash went into Kenny's mouth, and he made Stan watch him chew and swallow it before he continued: "Kyle's a lot smarter than me. I can't keep up with that."

"I know," Stan spat, and then a moment too late he reconsidered his words: "I mean, I know how smart he is, he's really smart, that's not to say he's smarter than _you_, just that—"

Kenny laughed, bitterly. "I'm not insulted. Just, you know — he's not just insane, he's _genius_ insane. Kyle can outwit anyone. He started asking me for these drugs, right? Things I didn't even know what they did, just where to get some. At first I was leery but he had all these explanations — this one does this, that one does this. I can't keep up with that, man. I just know where to find these things, not what they do. He said it would help and I believed him and I'm, well … I'm really sorry."

A miserable coffee Stan hadn't touched was sitting next to his plate, and he took a sip of it — the taste was bitter, and it had long since gone lukewarm. It was disgusting, disgusting coffee, but Stan forced himself to swallow his mouthful, which left a rancid taste he couldn't banish with a gulp of water.

"I'm sorry too," Stan said. "I don't know for what, though."

"I could give you some ideas." Kenny was cocking an eyebrow, obnoxious and insufferable, bits of undercooked egg stuck to the corners of his lips. "And I'm sure if you thought about it for a bit you'd figure it out."

"Oh." Stan tried to smile, but it made his headache worse. "What, uh — what do you think the problem is? I mean, how do you think I should fix this? Kyle is like _super_ pissed at me, like you wouldn't believe—"

"Eh, don't worry about it. He gets randomly angry and randomly forgives. He probably feels worse than you do about it, whatever it is."

"But how do I _fix_ it? Like, what is wrong with me? I try really hard, Kenny. I hope you believe me."

"Well, sure, I _believe_ you believe whatever abstract crap you're talking about. To be honest, I'm not following you. Just, you know, stay away from Kyle for a bit. He'll come around. As for your bigger issues, whatever those may be — I'm not going to be your fucking Cassandra. Meditate on it for a while and an answer will come." Kenny clapped his hands twice and waved his fingers over his hash. "Woo! I'm fucking magic! Problem solved."

Stan rolled his eyes. "Is this how you decided to keep that baby?"

"What? Oh, hell no. She just wouldn't have an abortion. Couldn't be talked into it. I mean, you bang every slut between here and Denver, eventually you meet a pro-life pole dancer, am I right? … Oh, I forgot, you probably don't; you're into dick. Well, let me put it like this: Eventually you suck some Log Cabin cock. Right?"

Stan didn't have the heart to tell Kenny he rarely even knew the names of all the people he hooked up with, let alone their political affiliations.

At the diner, customers paid at the counter, where Kenny ponied up 3.95 for Stan's mostly uneaten burger, and 2 dollars for Stan's mostly un-drunk coffee. Kenny had finished his entire meal with gusto — apparently he hadn't drunk enough the night before to lose his appetite.

"Let's get out of here," Stan pleaded as Kenny made eyes at the middle-aged cashier. She had lipstick smeared all over her front teeth.

"But it's only 1 o'clock." Kenny tapped his naked wrist with his middle and fore fingers. "If I go home now I'm going to have to _deal_ with shit."

"Not my problem," Stan muttered, turning around. "I feel so fucking sick it's like—" Stan shut up immediately as he turned around and locked eyes with Ike Broflovski, who was sitting in the booth nearest the door with another kid who looked maybe a year or two older — Filmore.

Ike had ordered a strawberry milkshake, but it remained virtually untouched — except for the whipped cream, which he was licking off the top in tiny increments. This was the first thing Stan noticed — even before he noticed that Ike wasn't sitting alone. There was a cherry on the milkshake, and Ike was licking around it. Stan's thought Ike looked adorable — there he was in his very binding, straight-legged gray jeans, sweep of bangs, and black rivulets of greasy tears streaking his cheeks where his eye makeup had run.

"Oh, it's that guy we bought pot from that time. And your brother's boyfriend," Filmore said.

"Ugh." Ike mocked a gagging gesture and pushed his milkshake away. "That's just Stan. He is _not_ my brother's boyfriend."

"Shit, get touchy about it." Filmore rolled his eyes. "Everything is making you so panicky and _ree_donkulous lately."

"I don't want to talk about it." Ike slipped a hand into the bunched-up jacket sharing his side of the booth and produced a long, thin cigarette.

"Your brother is gay, though, right?"

"I don't know. I don't _think_ so." Ike shook his head. "Actually, I don't want to know. I just want everything to go away."

Kenny cleared his throat. "Hi, boys. Long time no see. Enjoy the rest of your lunch," he said, waving. Then he pointed at Filmore. "You boys need anything, you call me. Right?"

"Sure." Filmore nodded. "Whatever. So long, guy we bought pot from. Other dude."

"His name is Stan. I _know_ you know what his name is." Ike stuck the cigarette between his lips and make a quick jerking motion with a loose fist.

Filmore widened his eyes and nodded, just knowing.

Stan groaned. "I can't do this!" he snapped, storming out of the restaurant.

Filmore smirked. "Where's he going?"

"Probably to drown himself in a toilet," Ike theorized.

"Eh, he'll be okay." Kenny flashed a thumbs-up. "Take care, boys."

XXX

Kenny found Stan banging his head against the side of Kenny's truck. "Whoa, whoa," he cautioned, pulling Stan off of it. "They're just kids, man. Lame little kids."

"I can't do this anymore!" Stan cried. "I'm gonna freak out or something, _oh my god—_" Stan was interrupted by his phone chirping once, then twice. "Oh, what now?" he moaned.

"Well, it sounds like you have a text," Kenny suggested. "But what the shit do I know?"

"Ugh." Stan pulled his phone from his pants, flipping it open. Indeed, he had a text from Ike Broflovski, or at least the number he recognized as belonging to Ike, as he'd never bothered to even put the kid in his phone. _call me later please. we seriously need to talk._ Shrugging, Stan snapped the phone shut and stuffed it back into his pocket. Why wouldn't everything just go away?

"Who from?" Kenny asked.

"Oh. Ike."

"Ike, like, Ike the Ike we were just talking to before you lost it again and fled the restaurant and started banging your head on my car?"

"Oh, shut the fuck up! Yes, that Ike! Will you just fucking stop trying to know everything for once? Jesus! I have the worst fucking headache ever! Goddamit!"

"Well, you're supposed to _eat_ the food the morning after if you want it to cure a hangover." Kenny rolled his eyes. "What the fuck is Ike doing texting _you_?"

For a moment, just a moment, Stan was on the verge of telling Kenny everything, letting it all spill out on the street like a bag of marbles that might roll anywhere. Stan even opened his mouth, all ready to talk, and then something — some kind of self-restraint he wished he'd developed prior to just this moment — stopped him. He clamped his mouth shut and crossed his arms. "Nothing," he said. "None of your business. I, like, don't even know."

"Uh huh." Kenny nodded. He sounded quite incredulous. "Okay, well, despite the fact you just called me a know-it-all, maybe you should take some of my advice: That kid is, like, all varieties of fucked-up. If I were you I'd stay the fuck away from him. Same goes for Kyle, natch, but I don't think that'd do a whole hell of a lotta good at this late date."

"Why? And when did I call you a know-it-all?"

"Just now. And, you know, no reason. No kid growing up like that is going to ever be normal. Frankly, I feel sorry for him. That's just how it is. … You need a ride?"

"Um." Stan looked around. He wasn't ready to go home. "Where are you headed?"

Kenny pointed behind his own shoulder, a direction that Stan recognized as toward the so-called 'nice' side of town. "Hang out with Cartman. Get high. Maybe his mom'll bake something. Don't really want to deal with Trish right now. Want to come?"

"No. I, uh — I think I need to be alone."

"Well." Sighing, Kenny crossed his arms. "Please get some help, Stan. Get out of here or come home to here or whatever it is you need to do with your life. But whatever it is, Jesus fucking Christ, just make a decision and stick to it, okay? I almost miss when you were like a sullen 15-year-old closet case. It was so much easier to have a conversation that wasn't unpleasantly deep."

"I do miss that too, sometimes. Weirdly. And, um — I thought you said you wouldn't be my Cassandra this time."

"Well, I don't want to. It's fucking exhausting. No fun," Kenny admitted. "But someone's got to be that."

They hugged, and Kenny hopped back into his vehicle and sped away, barely managing not to run over a woman jaywalking as he did. Stan, not wanting to be caught by Ike and Filmore when they finished their meal and left the diner, began to run toward the drug store. He needed aspirin immediately. It was freezing outside, a perfect 32 degrees Fahrenheit. In his green Converses Stan leapt over neat ice patches so he wouldn't fall over. He knew he had no traction.

* * *

_South Park_ isn't exactly great or consistent with character's names, so let's just pretend I spelled Jimmy's surname correctly. Their website is really no help.


	11. Chapter 11

We could sit here talking about why this took so g.d. long to update, but you probably just want to read the story.

* * *

Sick of running, Stan fell onto a cold bench outside of the drug store. It was on a corner off of Main Street and the treacherous little road that led up to the elementary school. Since when was there a bench outside? Stan didn't care. His head was throbbing and he felt more nauseated than he had before he'd eaten lunch, whatever lunch had consisted of. Too much coleslaw. Running probably hadn't helped.

This wasn't even a real drug store. Or rather, it was a real drug store, not a CVS or a Walgreens, or whatever Stan went to on Sherman in downtown Evanston. This was the same pharmacy his family had been getting amoxicillin and Advil from for years now. He found the smallest possible bottle of Bayer, and a can of root beer from a sputtering freezer near the register.

"You got an ID?" the cashier asked him. Her hair was dyed acid red and, predictably, she was smacking her gum. The name sewed into her smock was Dave. Stan figured it probably wasn't her name.

"Of course I have an ID," Stan snapped. "Why?"

"I can't sell you aspirin without an ID."

"What?" This was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. "Why?"

"I dunno." She shrugged. "Store policy."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Stan's head hurt even worse now. "Don't you know who I am?"

"No."

"I've been shopping here since I was like, 12."

"I don't know who you are and I don't care. I couldn't sell aspirin to the mayor with no ID. You got an ID?"

"I've lived here my whole life! And I have the worst possible headache!"

"I don't know what to tell you," she said. "Do you have an ID on you?"

Stan gaped at her in disbelief. "Yeah."

"Then why don't you just show it to me and I'll sell you that aspirin?"

After receiving his change, Stan made a point of saying, "Maybe if there wasn't a fucking meth problem in this retarded town upstanding citizens like me could buy painkillers without being subject to all this draconian, like, police-state shit."

She didn't even gratify Stan with a response.

So he sat back down on that cold bench, pried open the Bayer and popped the root beer. He swallowed four pills in once mouthful. Maybe that was too much; Stan just wanted his headache to go away. "Jesus," he muttered. "What did I do to deserve this?" For a moment he considered going to Cartman's house. Maybe it would be awkward, what with how he'd been acting last night, but there was something nice about the idea of seeking refuge in the Cartman household, where his mom kept the fridge stocked with beer (and had since they were 14), and the television was always on. But then he would have to talk to Cartman and Kenny. And the thought of eating or drinking or being exposed to loud sounds and bright lights made Stan feel sicker.

Pulling out his phone, Stan began to scroll through his contacts. He got to Kyle. Stan wanted to call Kyle — just to hear his voice mail message, over and over. He wanted to leave an apology: "If I knew it would hurt you I wouldn't have done it." But then Stan heard Kyle's voice replying, "How could you ever know it was going to hurt me? You'd never even think that far ahead." Which was true. He didn't think. Except now he was thinking about Kyle. _Jesus Christ, was this fucked up._ Poor Kyle.

Under Kyle's name was Loren's; there was someone he didn't feel the need to feel sorry for in the least.

Well, whatever. While staring at the screen, Stan got a new text message, from his mother: _Did you book a ticket back, honey?_ Fuck, he hadn't done that, either. One thing at a time. Stan sat for a moment, letting his fingers ache in the December wind and his head throb and the cold, ridged steel of the bench numb his ass. What else did Stan have to do? Oh, right. Call Ike.

Ike was at lunch 20 minutes ago, so he probably wouldn't be free to talk. Stan did not know Ike's number, so he had to dig it out of the last text message Ike had sent him.

The phone rang. It rang again. It rang a third time. Stan began to mentally compose his voice mail.

Then the phone stopped ringing. "Hola," said Ike. "You called. I'm shocked." Of course. Of course Ike would pick up the phone. _Of course_.

"Okay." Stan had very little patience for this.

"After your general disposition over the past few days, I was basically doubting you were going to call, ever."

"Well, you told me to."

"I know. So, thanks."

"Ike, I've had a long day—"

"God, I _know_, hangover brunch, it's so _taxing—_"

"—so just cut to the chase, please, okay?"

"Ah, _the chase_. Isn't that what this is to you, just some long, drawn-out chase? You're never going to tell Kyle how you feel about him, right? You'd rather worry away at him, little by little, until he does something drastic and then no one could want him? Or even have him? Because if that is your plan, it's idiotic. He can have anyone — except the person he really wants. He's fucking smart enough to ensnare anyone and just nuts enough to do it. You can't fucking—"

Stan wasn't even listening. "Oh, shut the fuck up. Stop fronting. You're like, 12."

"I'm 15!"

"You do _not_ get to be snotty to me. I don't know what the shit you're talking about, but you do not get to treat me like you're so goddamn smart. Statutory rape aside, it takes two people to fuck, Ike."

"I think you just contradicted yourself."

"Don't act like you didn't want it."

"What I've been saying all along is that I wanted it! In fact, if you're game, I'd like some more of it, please."

"No!" Stan snapped. "No, no, no, one million times _no_!"

"Okay, I get it. You hate me, I get it."

"I do _not_ hate you, I'm just getting pretty annoyed—"

"You're a dick, Stan. You're a fucking dick."

In a pathetic whimper, Stan said, "I'm not a dick."

"You are too. _Such_ a dick. Why did you even call me? Just to be a dick? Thanks."

"If you must know," said Stan, "I thought you were eating so you wouldn't pick up the phone."

"I slipped out. But you're not proving your point! You're such a dick, Stanley, such a fucking dick."

"Stop saying that! I get it!"

"Well." Ike cleared his throat. Stan heard what could only be the sound of a lighter igniting. A deep inhale, and Ike said, "I wanted to talk about Kyle."

"Okay." There was a moment of silence while Ike smoked. After a half-minute or so had passed, Stan said, "What about Kyle?"

"It's been a couple of days—"

"It's been, like, _a_ day—"

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Do about what?" Stan asked.

"Kyle."

"I don't understand. I'm not a psychotherapist or anything. What am I _supposed_ to do?"

"You're his best friend," said Ike. "I hate seeing him upset like this. Can't you do something? You have to have a plan."

"A plan to _what_?"

"To make it up to him!"

"Make _what_ up to him?"

"You — _you know_." Ike whispered into the phone, suddenly possessed by the need to be furtive and low-key. "This thing between us—"

Stan interrupted. "We don't have a thing."

"We just fucked once."

"Excuse me. Who is standing near you? I don't want anyone overhearing this conversation." Stan looked to his left, and then to his right. A family with young children was lingering a few doors down in front of the candy shop, but that was it. And they probably wouldn't overhear. Relieved, Stan slumped down on the bench. He realized he had gotten used to the cold, as it was no longer bothering him.

"Um." Ike sounded tentative, or maybe he was just smoking. Stan couldn't tell. "Well, some people are going in and out — I'm standing in front of the diner, and Filmore's staring at me through the window — oh, no, forget it, now he's playing with his phone."

"Okay." Stan felt further relieved by this information. "All right. So listen. There's nothing between us. I made that _really_ clear. You said you were clear on that."

"I am," Ike replied. "But don't you understand? It's not a matter of what's true, or what I know, or how you feel. This problem is now bigger than that."

"How is it bigger?"

"Because Kyle knows!"

Stan paused for a moment. His chest felt tight. He knew he wasn't having a heart attack. It was cold out. Why did everyone think 32 was so fucking warm? "You said he wasn't going to tell." To Stan, his own voice sounded like a miserable whine. He hated it.

"I don't think he will tell!" Ike shot back. Clearly the kid was annoyed. "Ugh, don't you get it? Why do I even bother? Why did I ever think you were cool?"

"I am cool—"

"Oh, shut the fuck up!" Now Ike sounded exasperated, pretty angry. "Who gives a crap? I mean, are you drunk? Or just conceited?"

Stan didn't _think_ he was conceited. "Well," he said, "I'm hungover, but I'm definitely not drunk."

"Fine, fuck, that's great. The _problem_, I'm trying to tell you, is that we hurt Kyle's feelings!"

"Oh, well." Stan hadn't thought about it like that. "I mean, isn't he just — like, whatever drugs he's on — some kind of amphetamine, by the way? Kenny told me this. Um." This was difficult. What to say? "Won't he just, like, get over it? Eventually?"

"Sure, maybe!" Ike was all but screaming into the phone. Maybe he was crying. Stan couldn't tell. He hadn't heard Ike cry since the kid was maybe 8 or 9. His eyeliner had looked runny at the diner, right? Maybe he'd been crying a lot lately. Stan didn't know. He didn't want to think about it.

"You don't understand," Ike was yelling. "I don't understand why you don't understand! What we did really hurt him! I don't know why? I mean, fuck, I know _why_, it's a lot to — there's too much to process, it's hard to know how he'll react to things, I try not to test him, but the last thing I want to do is hurt him, to make him hurt more. And I did! And I can't make it better."

"Then how do we make it better?" Stan asked. "Is there some kind of drug?"

Now Ike was very clearly crying.

"Are you all right?" Stan asked.

Ike did not directly answer. "There are all kinds of drugs. Drugs can do a lot of things. Too many drugs can hurt you so bad that drugs can't fix your problems anymore. But the one thing they can't do is fix how bad it feels when someone you care about doesn't care about you. So seriously, you have to talk to Kyle and try to fix it!"

"Can't you talk to him?"

"I _could_, sure, but he doesn't want to talk to me."

"I care about Kyle," Stan said. "More than you know."

"Then you have to make sure he knows that."

"How?"

"I don't know! Have you ever told him?"

"Probably," said Stan. "I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Well, fine. But when you fuck someone's life up the least you can do is _apologize_ and pretend to be sincere about it! Godammit! I'm going back to my food. I hate his stupid town! I hate it!" Ike hung up the phone.

Stan was left with these words echoing in his ears.

XXX

Stan hoped beyond hope that Loren would pick up. He knew he was functionally retarded for calling, and he really doubted that Loren was in the mood to speak to him. But Loren was dumb, and just romantic enough. Stan had been sitting on that bench outside of the drugstore for an hour now, and his thighs had lost all feeling through his thin, unwashed jeans. Or maybe they were just too tight. Whichever. Probably both.

Stan lost a bit of hope by the fourth ring — but by the fifth:

"You have got a lot of nerve."

"Loren!" Stan jerked upright out of shock, and relief. He got to his feet. "I am so glad to hear your voice!"

"That's funny," Loren said in a tone that made it clear he found it anything but funny. "I didn't expect to hear that from the guy who dumped me _via e-mail_ over Christmas."

Stan cringed at the way Loren pronounced _via_ with a long-I. It rang false to him, pretentious or ignorant — perhaps both. He shook it off. No matter. "Oh my god, I thought you weren't going to pick up. Don't hang up! This is serious. We have to talk."

"I'm not going to hang up. But I am going to excuse myself from lunch. Can you wait a moment?" There were a few moments of silence, and dull thud of footsteps came through the receiver. Stan heard a door slam shut, and then: "You know, usually you hear 'we need to talk' before you get dumped. But I really hoped you'd reconsider." Loren lowered his voice: "_I miss you, baby. _I know you didn't mean those nasty things."

"Well, actually." Stan sat back down on the bench. "I did. But — no, don't hang up! I mean — did I ever tell you about Kyle?"

"What? Did you ever — yeah, of _course_ you told me about fucking magical Kyle." Loren snorted, like it was preposterous. "The time you babysat an egg and the time you broke your leg skating and he called 911 and the time you both didn't get dates to your junior prom. I have most definitely heard about the amazing Kyle. _Duh_."

"Yes, I mean, I told you he existed. I just — Kyle is sick, actually. I never told you that."

"Oh." Now Loren sounded surprised. "Is he, you know — is he okay?"

"He's not terminally ill," Stan explained. "He's, uh — I don't know. Emotionally, he's not well. When I was — when we were in eighth grade, I guess — well, it goes back before that, but — he's _fucking crazy_, basically. Kyle is my best friend, but he's insane. My best friend is insane."

"Oh," Loren repeated. "I'm sorry. I never — well, you know, I never knew that, Stan. I'm sorry. … I don't know what that has to do with _me_," he added. "I mean, I don't know that it's really an excuse for you being a dick to me, but — well, that's rough. Sorry."

"I've never told anyone that. I mean, lots of people know; everyone in South Park knows, but I've never actually _told_ anyone. Because everyone I know just knows."

"Okay."

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

Then Loren coughed and said, "Why did you call me?"

Stan wasn't entirely sure. "I just don't know who to talk to," he said.

"So you called _me_?"

"Well, yeah. Should I not have?"

"Probably not. You did dump me, Stanley! That implies you are done with me."

"I know I did. So can I ask you something?"

"What? Yeah, sure. Why?"

"Did I make you feel bad?"

"Did you _what_?" Loren asked. "Of _course_ you did! I liked you, you asshole!"

That caught Stan's attention. "You _did_?"

"Yeah, duh! What do you think, I just go out with anyone I find in a bathroom?"

"No, I mean." Stan had to pinch the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes to keep from sighing, which he feared would be interpreted as rude. "I mean, you _did_ like me, past tense? No longer?"

"Uh." Loren paused for a moment to think. Then he asked, "Stan, if you were me, would you like you?"

Stan wasn't really sure how to answer that.

"Stan." Loren sighed one of his breathy, excessive sighs. Over the top. So like a drama major. Only this time, Stan felt that Loren was totally sincere. "Why should I like you? I mean, I _love_ you, or I thought I did, but what the fuck is wrong with a guy who sends a break-up e-mail and then calls two days later to ask if that hurt me? So I don't really understand what game you're playing. You dumped me, okay, so — so what are we doing on the phone?"

"I don't know," Stan said, and he was telling the truth to the best of his knowledge. "I — I don't know, but, it's like — okay. Here's the thing. I've been accused of being a dick. I've been accused of being mean, or whatever, of — of hurting Kyle's feelings."

"_Oh_, super, _Kyle_'s feelings."

"But you don't understand! He's not mentally stable!"

"I'm beginning to think _you're_ not mentally stable."

"I assure you," said Stan, "I'm mentally stable."

"Well, whatever! Get to the fucking point."

"The point is that I hurt him! And I need to know what it feels like to be hurt, or what I can do to make it better."

"That's — that's retarded! Jesus Christ. _Fuck_. Okay. What'd you do to hurt him?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does," said Loren. "Did you step on his toe? Or sleep with his girlfriend? There's a big difference."

"Well, neither of those. But conceptually, more like the second one."

"_Oh my god_," Loren squealed. "You fucked a _girl_?"

"No!" Stan yelled. Then he quieted down and repeated, "No. But I did something unwittingly" — or close enough, to Stan's mind — "that hurt him. And I thought, who could I talk to about this? And I tried talking to my friends at home and I realized, these people suck. So I wanted to talk to the most normal person I know. Lor, you're the most normal and decent person I know."

"Ah." Loren sniffed. "_So why did you dump me_?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. Just tell—"

"I'm in love with Kyle," Stan said very quickly. "That's, um—" Well, it was _true_, even if it wasn't the correct answer. Nevertheless, Stan continued: "I'm in love with him. I'm sorry. I wanted to make it work, but LA is too far, and I just can't — I don't know, I want to be with him."

"Is there something between you two?" Loren asked. His voice sounded brittle.

"Probably not. I don't know. I wanted to like, say something, you know, but then things got fucked up and — I don't know, I guess I'm scared?"

"I don't think of you as scared. Not really."

Stan laughed. "Really? I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."

"You're a brilliant journalist," Loren said. "You're going to the Tribune. You seduce boys in bars and make them wait the whole summer for you and then dump them over Christmas. Did you listen to my iPod?"

"Um." Stan shuffled his feet. "Yeah. In the airport."

"What'd you think?"

Stan had actually liked the music. He liked Postal Service and all that fake-ass hipster shit. "It was nice. It was good."

"Good. I'm glad. … I hope you work stuff out with your friend Kyle, though, Stanley. I hope he gets better."

"Me too."

"I have to go now, my family's—"

"Loren?"

"Yeah?"

Stan closed his eyes. He felt the wind blowing against his cheeks, across his eyebrows and eyelashes. "I'm sorry."

For a moment neither of them said anything; all Stan heard was the laughter of the family down the block, now exiting the candy shop, and a truck barreling down Main Street.

Then: "Thanks, Stan." Loren coughed into the phone. "I have to get back to lunch. Good bye."

"Bye," Stan replied. He snapped his phone shut, not knowing if he and Loren would ever speak again, but hoping that sometime in the future, maybe they would. He didn't really feel contrite.

But he no longer felt nauseated.

* * *

So you can either sit there crying and eating can after can of dog food until your tears smell enough like dog food to make your dog come back - or you can go out there and find your dog!

This is my new personal mantra for fan fic.

Also, I'm sorry this took so long to update. Also, I'm super excited for this new season. I know everyone says that, but I'm the only person who's not lying. And actually some people haven't said it yet and I don't know why because who can't wait to see what zany crap those kids get up to next? Did someone say Token episode? Fingers crossed.


	12. Chapter 12

The next day was dismal, sky the color of slate threatening to suffocate Stan as he trudged up the shoveled pathway to Kyle's front door.

He'd resolved to make this visit over a bowl of Chex. His mother's endless questioning — _when are you leaving? Did you buy a ticket? What kind of milk is that, is that 2 percent milk? I told your father to get 1 percent but he never listens. Honey, how old is that milk? Do you want me to run out and get you a new thing of milk? Don't put that 2 percent milk in your cereal, Stanley, let Mommy take care of it _— seemed less preferable at this point than facing Kyle, facing whatever would happen at their confrontation.

Sheila Broflovski answered, wiping her hands on an apron. She didn't seem to be in a very good mood, scowling at first glance, but when she recognized Stan a giant grin parted her lips and she said, "Stanley! What a pleasant surprise." Stan could tell this enthusiasm was genuine.

So he smiled back. "Hey," he said, waving from the other side of the screen door. "How are you?"

"On, I'm decent enough, decent enough." Sheila pushed the screen door open and yanked him inside. "Don't stand out there, dear, it's much too cold to just dawdle around outside like that. Oh, and your shoes — you can't wear sneakers in the mountains in two feet of snow! I'd ask where you grew up or something but, Stanley, you should _know_ better."

Stan looked down at his feet, sopping-wet green Converses, and blushed. "Force of habit," he said.

"Habit? What habit? It doesn't get cold in Chicago? I had cousins growing up there, through marriage, my mother's brother's wife's family. Oh, it doesn't matter. But such violent winters, they were always talking about! You wear those sneakers all year long?"

Well, yes, as he only owned three pairs of shoes. Stan didn't have a lot of options. "Well, I don't know, global warming — I guess it's different." He shrugged, just to make the point that he didn't want to continue the discussion. "But, is Kyle home?"

"Oh, yes!" She brushed her hands together. "Of course, you're not here to talk to _me_. He's in the kitchen. Come on." She began to saunter through the living room, and Stan followed.

"Kyle!" she announced as they entered the kitchen. "Stan's here, bubbe. You didn't tell me you had plans!"

"I don't have to tell you anything," Kyle snapped. Then he sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. "But as it happens I didn't _have_ any plans."

"_Ah_, okay." Sheila raised her eyebrows. "I see. Well. In that case, I'd better leave you boys alone. Kyle, bubbe, any idea where your brother ran off to?"

Kyle shrugged. "I thought he was _my_ babysitter. Not the other way around."

She sighed, rubbing temples. "You know it doesn't work like that, Kyle. If you hear from him, you tell him I want him to come home right away. Or do you think he's going out for New Year's Eve tonight? I mean, he can't be planning to be gone all day _and_ all night. I want to know what his plans are. Do you think he's out with Filmore?"

"I don't know, Ma. I really, really don't know."

"Well, two of us not knowing does us no good." Sheila reached behind her back to undo the sloppy bow on her apron. She stuffed it in a drawer. "If you boys need something, come find me. And tell your brother he can't run out for the whole day without talking to me first! It's New Year's Eve, and there are sickos out there!"

"Of course." Kyle nodded.

"Well, goodbye," she said.

"Go already if you're going."

So finally, she left.

Kyle waited until he heard her door slam from upstairs, and then turned to Stan, smirking. "She's so right about the sickos, though, isn't she? Lord knows who's taking advantage of poor Ike right now."

At this point Stan figured he'd been standing long enough, so he took a seat across from Kyle at the table. Stan realized he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. Just the gesture of coming here had been a lot of internalize — a step he'd had to force himself to take.

Those cat's-eye sunglasses were folded up on the table, next to a glass of milk and a plate of tuna noodle casserole — a nice dairy lunch for a nice Jewish boy, Stan figured. Sheila put peas in it, and altogether it wasn't a very appealing dish, noodles and fish and frozen peas bathed in cream of mushroom, topped with breadcrumbs. This was the shit they used to eat when they were in grade school, sitting on the couch together watching reruns of — what else? — _Terrance and Philip_, putting off doing homework and thinking about growing up. This was what they did long before Kyle began to slip further and further away from your basic façade of sanity, before he couldn't sit still without beginning to tear his cuticles off bit by bit until blood came to the places where his nails met his flesh. Or when Stan still had an elementary school girlfriend, Wendy Testaburger — he remembered how badly he wanted to kiss her, not because he was aroused by her in some way, because he was like 8 or 10 or whatever and nothing aroused him _like that_, but just because she made him feel special and foolish and very, very nervous.

For just a few brief moments Stan caught a whiff of the cream of mushroom soup in those noodles and he was brought back to a reality made out of primary colors and construction paper and blunt shapes where everything and everyone kind of looked the same. The only thing he knew then was that South Park was very, very random and Kyle Broflovski was always going to be his best friend. But when the moment passed, Stan looked around at the room he was sitting in, and Kyle's half-eaten dish of casserole; everything just looked dingy and old. Kyle himself had bruises around his eyes and they were so very bloodshot and his lips were so chapped they were almost ragged. The complexity of this was too much and Stan no longer knew what he was doing here.

"Hello?" Kyle said, bringing him back from the edge of his ruminations. "You look zoned out. And _I'm_ the one who just slept for 18 hours."

Which seemed like quite some time. "That's really a lot," Stan replied, easing back into a rhythm of conversation he wasn't sure he could ever regain. "You look pretty tired."

"Stan," he said with a desperate kind of frankness. "I'm fucking exhausted."

XXX

Kyle wanted a cigarette, so they went to sit in the empty, open garage (Kyle's father was at work, with the car — Gerald Broflovski must have been the only self-employed man in Colorado who would go into the office on New Year's Eve, Stan figured) and talk about whatever it was they had to discuss. Stan wasn't sure what this was, or maybe he felt it would be better if they just stared at each other and said nothing for a long time. And they did this while Kyle smoked, hunched over on the concrete floor almost as if he were hiding. But as soon as Kyle finished the cigarette and smashed it into the ground, he looked up and said, "Okay, so she won't hear us out here."

"Who, your mom?" Stan asked.

"Yes," Kyle hissed, crawling back over to where Stan was sitting, the steps the led to the mud room door. "She is always listening to me, she's worse than the CIA. It's some serious literary thought crime shit."

"That's madness."

Kyle rolled his eyes. "Well, go figure."

Stan found this pretty amusing, so he laughed a little, but Kyle was giving him the most heartbreaking look of pain, so he stopped. "What?" he asked.

"You fucked Ike!"

"Oh, yeah," Stan said, like maybe he didn't remember, although he most definitely did.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself." Kyle reached up the left sleeve of his sweatshirt, pulling out a well-worn scrap of yellow lined paper. "I want to be angry at you. I mean, I am _furious_, I am. But I'm tried, dude. And I'm cycling through a bunch of shit and I don't even know where I _am_ anymore."

"Well, uh." Stan raised a ceremonial hand, palm open, toward the heavens. "We're in the garage."

Ignoring that, Kyle continued: "Anyway, I have this list." He unfolded the paper and read it over to himself, lips parted just a bit. (Stan wanted to grab him by the shoulders and slip his fingers inside those lips — not because it was sexy, because it sort of wasn't, but because it reminded him of opening up an airway, and Kyle looked like he could use some air. Or so Stan was trying to convince himself.) "Ah, okay," Kyle said. "Number one. Maybe I should explain, though. I've been keeping this list since before you came home. Actually, I started writing it in the hospital. Over Thanksgiving." Kyle's face went red. He shook his head. "Okay, number one. _What are you going to do about Loren, because you clearly hate that guy?_ Well, that's taken care of, isn't it?"

"Actually," Stan said, "I talked to him yesterday."

"What!" Kyle snapped. "Why?"

"I figured I owed him a phone call," Stan said. Then his eyes narrowed. "But what's it to you?"

"Nothing. Do you know what? I don't want to talk about Loren. Actually, from now on, I don't give a shit about Loren. Don't talk to me about him. Okay, moving on. Two — these aren't in order, by the way: _I do not think I am manic-depressive._"

This theory did not even resonate with Stan. To him, Kyle had so long been fucking crazy that it was as ludicrous as the idea that maybe Kyle wasn't Jewish or wasn't redheaded or something. "Uh huh," he said, nodding as a courtesy. "That's interesting."

"You don't believe me!"

"It's not a matter of believing you or not," Stan explained. "We're sitting on the floor of your _garage_ because you think your mom is spying on you, and in the past week you tried to maul me, and what was that shit two days ago with Kenny and the amphetamines?"

"It's just _Dexedrine_," Kyle scoffed, as if there were such a thing as _just_ Dexedrine.

"You're clearly bipolar, okay? I'm not going to indulge this crap. If you just do what doctors tell you, you'll be fine, but if you go screwing around with shit you'll be even _more_ fucked up. I think we learned that the hard way in high school. So sure, I guess I don't believe you."

"Bullshit!" Kyle cried, pointing a finger into Stan's shoulder. "You're not a fucking psychologist, or trained in mental/emotional acrobatics, or tuned into anything having to do with neurotransmitters and brain wiring and how truly, truly awful it all feels."

"I think _knowing you_ is some kinda serious field experience."

"Fuck you! It is not! You don't know anything! You don't know this, but people can be misdiagnosed, Stan! I see it _all the time_. I met this girl over Thanksgiving; she clearly had a personality disorder but they kept giving her drugs for depression, and she wasn't like that so mood elevators just fucked her up, so then they gave her downers and she felt like crap, and then she needed even stronger anti-depressant shit just to climb out of _that_ hole — it was tragic, this girl I met. I felt so bad for her, this girl. Lithium, you know, they write songs about it for a _reason_."

"Is this someone you keep in touch with?" Stan asked.

"Well, yes." Kyle lowered his eyes. "Because I'm talking about me."

"_Oh_-kay." Stan stood up, brushing the dust from the garage floor off of his ass. "This is weird now."

"_Sit back down_," Kyle growled. "So help me Stanley Marsh you will sit back down or _I swear_."

"You swear what?" Stan asked. He sounded incongruous, but he was still _doing_ it. "You'll what, you'll come at me again?"

"I'll come at you a million times if I feel like it," Kyle warned. "I'll come at you so hard and so fast you'll just shatter."

"Okay." Stan rolled his eyes. This poetic crazy nonsense — he didn't have time for it. "Fine."

Again, there was silence — Kyle's brooding; Stan's annoyed.

Then Kyle said, "This is something I need you to back me up on."

"I don't see why it matters what I think. If you think you have some" — Stan waved his hand around, searching for a word — "_qualms_ or whatever, you need to take it up with your doctor. Or at least your parents."

"My parents would be more willing to listen to me if you got behind me."

"Huh." For a moment, Stan did think about getting behind Kyle, in a literal sense, which was the result of his lack of good imagination. It had been a really long time since he'd put his arms around Kyle's waist, but there were two problems with just grabbing him: One was that Kyle didn't do well with surprises, and being grabbed from behind would probably set him off. (Stan knew this from high school, when Kenny tried it once and was rewarded by being kicked into a chain-link fence.) Kyle was also tiny, at least where Stan was concerned, and although he knew Kyle could take it there was something foreboding about grabbing the guy, not wanting to break him. So Stan just sat there, tenting his fingers, and said, "I don't see how _me_ getting involved is going to be any help."

"Well, they trust you," Kyle explained. He was clutching his list in a nervous way, fingers trembling just a little, but enough for Stan to notice. "You're the litmus test of crazy. Maybe _I'm_ crazy but that doesn't mean every word out of my _mouth_ is crazy—"

Stan wasn't sure if he believed _that_.

"—and I think if you tell them we talked and it sounds feasible, they'll take me seriously. I mean, you don't just tell doctors they're _wrong_, Stan. They're _doctors_. I'm in a lot of pain—"

"Oh, _don't_ even go there. You inflict that shit on yourself. If you just stuck to your meds and didn't try to fucking outsmart everyone, not that it's difficult, I mean, Kenny, _come on_—"

Kyle interrupted. "I don't mean physical pain! I mean, yes, I do think it's pretty obvious the self-harm is kind of a reflection of how I feel otherwise but I mean, inside. Here." Kyle tapped his head. "Everything feels wrong, all the time. I don't think you could possibly know what's going on in here, I don't even know usually, but it's not good, it's scary." Kyle's voice became very small. "I'm scared for myself. I barely even know what I am half the time. There's no way you could know what that feels like."

"Oh, I think I could." Stan shook his head.

"Well, then that's number three," Kyle said. He shook his list in Stan's face, for good measure. "You never tell me _anything_ anymore."

It was too much. Stan knew then that he should have been a better friend. He should have called. He should have come home for Thanksgiving. Kyle was just babbling, trying to get every single thing in his brain out — he'd been storing cuts of meat in a freezer and now they all had to defrost. It was a dumb metaphor, and Stan realized he was only making it because he was staring at the big freezer in the corner of the garage, the one where Kyle's mother kept slabs and slabs of meat she bought on sale. That, and Stan was quite cold anyway, what with the cement floor and the lack of heat in the garage and, well, it was late December. Plus he felt nervous and wanted to move a little.

"Can we please go inside?" Stan asked. He wrapped his arms around himself for good measure. "It's cold out here."

"I'm not cold," Kyle lied. Stan could see that he was cold. He was shaking, too.

"Okay, that's crazy. We're going inside."

"But she'll hear!"

Stan rolled his eyes. "Bedroom, Kyle. _Now_."

XXX

Kyle's bedroom was familiar, his walls covered by the same posters he'd had when he was 8, 9, 10 years old. Kyle didn't put a lot of effort into keeping his room neat or in any kind of order. There had been a point in high school when Stan realized that maybe Kyle's room and his emotional condition were related. It was when they were 14 and, incidentally, the weekend before the weekend when Stan ended his football career while ice skating.

The impetus for this realization was that Stan had stepped on a Lego piece, an insidious little two-by-four gray block, concealed by Kyle's carpet, which was a similar shade of gray. Stan was not a big fan of Legos, but Kyle was in those days; Kyle built tall, twisting structures, then shattered them to pieces. It seemed one of those pieces had been left on the floor, and had ended up gouged in Stan's foot. Kyle made Stan sit on the bed, and removed the wedge of Lego with a tweezers. Blood was beginning to reach the wound, and Stan was too shocked to feel any pain. "All better," Kyle had said. Then he put his mouth to the ball of Stan's foot and licked the puncture until Stan was aroused and embarrassed.

"Stop that," Stan had said, cupping his foot in his hands, wishing he had been wearing socks. "You're acting too weird again." Stan's foot bothered him for the rest of the week, stinging through scrimmages and tightening skate laces, until Stan ended up in Kyle's arms, sweating on the ice.

In the same cluttered room, eight years later, Stan found himself arguing with Kyle, who had blanketed Stan with reams of print-outs on borderline personality disorder. Stan could barely move himself to read one of them, let alone the entire stack. Not that Kyle could shut up for long enough to let Stan read anything:

"This is me, right?" he asked, grabbing at one of the papers on the bed. "I fit all of the criteria?"

Stan laughed. He'd spent enough of his life reading about psychiatric conditions on the internet to understand that, yes, it did all sound ... _sort of_ like Kyle.

"What?" Kyle rolled his eyes. He was kneeling on his bed, looking down on Stan, who was slouching against the headboard. "You think it's funny?"

"I think you need a doctor—"

"I have _so many_ doctors! What I need is for you to be my friend!"

"I am. I'm your best friend." Stan really meant it.

"Then you have to support me!" Kyle said. "You, of all people!"

Guilt crashed into Stan's consciousness. What did that mean, him of all people? Just because he was gay, was that what Kyle meant? Stan had taken enough gender and sexuality studies courses (well, only one, but it was still enough) to understand that he felt gender was very binary. Even gay sex, to Stan's mind, was anchored to this paradigm. So if Kyle was suggesting that on account of having sex with men Stan should understand that Kyle wanted out of the paradigm — okay, Kyle was probably not suggesting that.

"Why me of all people?" Stan asked, hoping Kyle would not reply, _Because you're gay_.

And to Stan's great fortune, he didn't. "Because," he said softly. "You're my best friend. And — and you're supposed to love me, unconditionally. And support me. _Unconditionally_."

"Oh," Stan said, rubbing his hands together, just to give him something to do while he watched Kyle slump over, looking like his heart was breaking. This was a very reasonable thing for a crazy person to say. "Well, I do."

"I don't _feel_ like you do," said Kyle.

"Well, you can't just expect me to be like, 'Okay, good, you attacked me in the street two days ago, so today let's invent some new gender.' I'm sorry, you know, maybe some advance warning is better."

"I'm not even talking about that."

"Well, then _what_ are you talking about?"

"Stan, I don't want to do this here."

"Well, I'm going back to Chicago in two days!" (In theory. Stan still hadn't bought or changed his ticket.) "So when and where would you like to do it?"

"I thought you were here for two more weeks!"

"Nope, sorry, changed my mind. I'm leaving here. I _hate_ this town."

"I hate it too!"

"Well," said Stan, grateful at least that they had some kind of mutual agreement on that point. "In which case I guess you're not _totally_ crazy."

"But I want to leave," Kyle explained. Sitting on the bed he'd been fidgeting, but the idea of leaving seemed to move him to get up and begin pacing. His bedroom wasn't enormous, and the floor was littered with crushed pills and what looked (to Stan) like dozens of soiled pairs of boxer-briefs. And torn, crumpled sheets of yellow notebook paper, and other college-student detritus: used tissues, unused tissues, pencils, pens, band-aid wrappers, and … was that a bottle of nail polish?

"I want to leave here," Kyle kept repeating while he paced. "I don't think it makes me better; it makes me worse. It makes all of us worse. I mean, look at _you_."

"Me? What's this got to do with me? I don't even live here."

"You were here for two days and you had sex with a child," Kyle pointed out.

"Fuck! Will you stop bringing that up? What's this child shit?"

"It was undeniably fucked-up…"

"Okay! It was fucked up!" Stan threw his hands into the air. Kyle stopped pacing. "How long are you going to hold this against me? Whatever Ike is, okay, he's not a child. Children might — they might go along willingly if you suggest things to them, but … I don't know, I don't suppose a child would _initiate _sex. How come other people pursue _me_, and yet I'm the one who gets held responsible?"

"When you're the party with less to lose, that's what happens," said Kyle. "Oh my god. You should talk to my therapist."

"Which one?" Stan asked.

Kyle felt the sting of this dig, and sat down on the bed. "Yes," he said, tenting his fingers. "I'd forgotten I'm so _massively fucked-up_ I have more than one therapist."

But Stan didn't want to talk about that. "Well, I plan to leave in two days." He sat up straighter, rolling up his sleeves. He meant business. "So whatever you want to talk about, you'd better tell me now."

"I'm telling you. I'm _trying_ to tell you. But you won't listen! I had a list. Where's my-?" Kyle looked around, feeling the surface of his desk.

"Did you leave it in the garage?" Stan asked.

"Fuck you, no. I'm not _that_ stupid."

"Well, why don't you just tell me what you remember is on the list, and as you go along you can make a list of what we're talking about. Then, when you find the other list, you'll know what got left out, and what we've all ready covered."

"Okay." Kyle nodded, getting up to grab a block of writing paper from next to his computer. "That sounds reasonable."

"Do you need a pen?" Stan bent over, and grabbed one from the floor. It was lying next to a spilled bottle of pills. The orange canister was lying so that Stan couldn't read the label, so he didn't bother. "Here," he said, reaching over to hand it to Kyle.

"Thanks." At the cap, their fingers met.

Stan blushed, and let go.

Kyle leaned back, scribbling things on his pad. "I remember we already talked about Loren," he said.

"Yes." Stan nodded.

"I've told you about the misdiagnosis, and I think I need adjustments to my medication."

"Right."

"And I think if you talked to my parents about this, they'd be much more open to finding a new doctor, you know, if they say, 'Have you talked to anyone about this?' and I say, 'Yes, Stan, and he thinks I'm making sense,' they'll just feel comfortable with that." Kyle said this, tentative and careful.

Stan realized something: Kyle _needed_ him. He had something Kyle needed, and Stan could hold it hostage. Almost instantly he knew this was a silly plan, that he didn't want some kind of Stockholm Syndrome love born out of a desperate quest to find medicated stability. But, he figured, it would probably be rash to agree to this so easily.

So Stan said, "Let's talk about that more later." Then he realized that he was planning on fleeing in two days. He added, "Like tomorrow."

"Okay." Kyle shook his head. "I need to find some kind of gender identity—"

"Pass," said Stan.

"Can we talk about it tomorrow?"

Stan rolled his eyes. "Fine."

"I need to get out of _South Park_."

"Well," said Stan, "I don't disagree with you there."

"But I'll never get out of _South Park_ if I don't get the right treatment. And I'll never get the right treatment unless I can convince them I'm borderline. But they won't listen to me, _because I'm crazy_. So I need you to help me."

"Okay, well." Stan shut his eyes. "Does helping you in this case mean I have to help you get a sex change or something?"

"No." Kyle sounded annoyed. "I don't want surgery. I want to stop feeling inside my head like I'm nothing or like I'm whatever I'm not."

"Okay." Whatever _that_ meant. "Do I have to call you by female pronouns or something?"

"No. It's not … it's not like _that_."

"Then what's it like?" Stan asked.

"Like everything inside of me is always falling apart." Kyle swallowed; he sounded so small, so miserable. "Like I don't have any stable thing in my life, no anchor. I can't be anything or really even anyone. I don't understand why you don't understand. I always thought we spoke the same language, and — _Jesus Christ_, I need a fucking cigarette."

"You just smoked one five minutes ago!"

"Well, fuck _you_, I'm addicted!" Kyle dropped the note paper and buried his face in his hands. "Why did you come here? Why did you come over here if you're just going to mock me? I need you, don't you get it? I need you and you just — you just treat me like I'm some fucking sideshow—"

"Kyle."

"And you tell me you're leaving in two days, _why_? You never come over, you never talk to me—"

"Well, the last time I tried to spend time with you, you tried to kill me!"

"The last time you _did_ spend time with me, you fucked my baby brother!"

"He's not a baby!" Stan wanted to kick a wall. "He's 15!"

"You're 22!"

"And if, when I was 15, some 22-year-old guy had wanted to fuck me, I would have been absolutely fucking overjoyed! Instead I had to fucking settle for fucking Butters!"

Stan folded his hands in his lap, waiting for Kyle's reaction. He was expecting delayed shock.

Instead, Kyle pulled his sunglasses from his face, and threw them on the floor. His eyes were wet and his face was dry. "I know," he rasped. "Because that's just what you do, right? You leave me. First it was Butters. Then Northwestern. Now Ike, I guess. I got into Northwestern, Stan. Did you know that?"

"Yeah," Stan said, although he hadn't.

"But I couldn't go. They wouldn't let me go. I had to stay in Colorado so they could control me from two hours away. Well! That worked out super."

"It's not my fault your parents worry about you."

"No," Kyle replied, "but you still chose to leave me. You fucking leave me all the time. You run away from me as fast as you can—"

"No."

"—because I'm an insane freak."

"No! Kyle, you're—" Stan stopped himself. He lowered his voice: "You're not a freak. And I've never run away from you because I thought you were a freak."

"Then why do you keep leaving me? You're the only stable thing for me, the only stable thing in my life. You're my _anchor_. Why do you leave me and tear me up and make me feel this way?"

Stan felt his face burning and his palms sweating. He knew he had to say it. The words were on the tip of his tongue. He was about to do it, about to say it — and then he said, "I don't think I can tell you."

A look of recognition settled on Kyle's face, and his lips pulled into a shallow smile, knowing and satisfied. "Oh," he said, voice quivering. "Well, that's all right. You don't have to." He lurched forward, putting a hand on Stan's shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Stan asked, wondering if Kyle wasn't going to attempt to choke him again.

Kyle kneeled up so he could be level with Stan's height, and brought their mouths together for the first time.

* * *

Two chapters left. I think this is the longest so far.


	13. Chapter 13

"We can't be together." Kyle uttered these words with Stan's seed still drying in his grasp, their shoulders touching comfortingly but not purposefully, their breaths ragged and out-of-sync. Or, rather, Stan's was; Stan was practically shuddering, trying to let his thoughts catch up with reality. Was eight years a long time to want someone? To be hopelessly convinced that his bare skin in your grasp would be the death-knell of all life's problems?

Stan jolted up, eyes suddenly more open than he thought they were going to get that afternoon. He looked down at Kyle, whose eyes were shut and whose eyelids were yellow, battered and swelling just enough to be noticeable, but those bruises couldn't have been less than a week and a half old.

"Why not?" Stan asked. He grabbed Kyle's shirt, the thin material collapsing into the webs of his clutch without protest.

Kyle sighed. He was smiling. He shook his head.

It just came out: "I love you." It sounded so small and pathetic. Stan let go and clasped his mouth shut. He sank back to his haunches from his knees. "I'm sorry, but it's true. I love you so much more than anything I've ever earned in my life. I've never even _earned_ anything in my life; it was you, it was all you, everything I've done has been for you, or because or you, or, or — I don't know if I can remember a time when I didn't just need to divide my life into two parts, before you and after you. And the thing is." Stan sniffed. "The thing is that that other part of my life, the part where I actually _become_ someone, that can't start without you."

"If you need me so badly, why did you leave me?"

"Excuse me?"

"Stan." Kyle sat up, still holding his sticky mess of a hand aloft, not smearing it clean but letting Stan's fluids harden thinly in the bone-dry air of the bedroom. "I don't know why you think I don't love you. Somehow, in some way, I don't really know. I do. But we can't be together."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not okay to be with anyone! And neither are you."

"What do you mean, I'm not fit to be with someone?"

"Stan, look at you." Kyle cocked his head. "You had sex with _15-year-old_."

"What!"

"Look, I don't know who hurt you, or what you're angry about, or what you're afraid of. The last time in my life I was happy was in high school with you. I was confused and felt lost and like a cliché, but what your mother said at dinner the other night? It was true, at least for me. Being with you was the only thing I had. It was the only thing that I felt good or normal about. And then you left me. First you left me for Butters, then you left me to go to school. And I don't — I don't really know. I don't know how to describe what I want."

"We were never together, though. I didn't 'leave' you for Butters."

"I know."

"But you said—"

"I don't even know who I am!" Kyle cried. "I don't know who I am, what I want, what's normal, how I should be. I don't know _what_ I am. I don't even know what gender I should be half the time when I wake up. And you're a disgusting philanderer."

"What? Oh my god, Kyle, do not turn that on me."

"Why, because if you were with me you wouldn't be? You can't _change_ that about a person. If it's who you are, it's who you are. I've had enough analysis to get _that_, you know."

"But that's why you have a relationship with someone, because you want to, like—"

"Fix each other." Kyle reached over Stan for a Kleenex, and began wiping off his hand.

Stan couldn't help but cringe at how clinical that gesture felt. "I was going to say, 'make each other better.' "

"Same difference." Kyle shrugged and threw the tissue on the floor. It made Stan's chest seize. "Look, dude, you and me. _This__town_. We're done. We were done when we were _8_."

"Why are you so calm?" Stan felt like he was screaming, but Kyle's face was impassive, turned off.

"Because I'm on drugs."

"You were like crying half an hour ago."

"I'm on drugs," Kyle repeated. "Do you want some drugs?"

Slowly, Stan shook his head.

"That's probably wise," Kyle said. "Anyway. You should go talk to my mom now."

Stan's heart was tearing in half. "No. Why should I?"

"Because you said you would if I jacked you off?"

Stan's heart was tearing in half and he was trembling. "Fuck you," he gasped. "You sick fuck."

Kyle had reached into his boxers, whispered in his ear, licked his jaw. _I__'__ll__make__it__worth__your__while__if__you__go__talk__to__her_, he'd said.

"Don't you want me to, like-" Stan tried to pull himself together. "You know, return the favor, or something?" He hated having to beg, but here he was.

"No, I'm okay." Kyle shrugged.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Sure you're sure?"

"Stan!" Kyle snapped. "You said you'd talk to her if I got you off."

"But I thought-"

"That you weren't going to have to keep your promise?"

"Fuck you! You — that's not a real promise! Don't hold me some shit I said when you were teasing me, _fuck__you_, you fucking mentally ill drama queen-"

"You fucking _raped_ my brother!"

"I did not! Fuck! Stop fucking bringing that up! It's over, I don't care-"

"No, you don't, you don't fucking care!" Now Kyle _was_ crying, actually. "You say you love me, well, why would you do that?"

Stan felt breathless. "Because he wanted it, Kyle, he wanted me to, and I was drunk and it seemed like a fun thing to do."

Kyle didn't respond directly, just sobbed, "Oh, god," and started pulling at his hair.

"Don't do that." Stan took one of his wrists. "It's okay, dude, it's over."

"Did you do it because he's my brother?"

"No, of course not."

"Then why would you do it?"

"I just did it!" Stan was shaking his head, holding Kyle's wrist still, away from anywhere it could do damage. "Fuck, I wasn't _thinking_ about it."

"How could you not be thinking about it?"

"I don't know! Don't you ever have sex without thinking about it?"

"Yes!" Kyle freed his wrist from Stan's grasp and clutched it. "I do, all the time! All the fucking time, okay, it's not something I can help."

"So, you have sex all the fucking time, but you don't want to have it with me?"

"You don't want that kind of sex, I'm telling you." Kyle's eyes were so red, but he'd stopped crying, again. "If I have sex with you it can't be like that, it has to be careful, we can't just _do_ it."

"Why not?"

Kyle sighed, rubbing his eyes, as if they weren't strained enough. "It always amazes me that people actually _like_ to hook up. It's something I do — it's a symptom of something being very wrong for me, half the time I'm not even aware that I'm doing it. I just — when I'm, um, being manic. Clinically manic. But I've never had sex that I've actually enjoyed. I wouldn't know how. I wouldn't know how to look at someone, to — to touch them. You have to understand, I associate sex with very negative feelings."

"So you just offer me some hand job?"

"I just want you to talk to my parents! Okay? _God_." Kyle buried his head in his hands. "Don't you understand, living like this is going to kill me, and I don't even fucking care. I have to get out of Colorado. And I need you to talk to my parents."

"Okay, well, other than 'Kyle thinks his bipolar diagnosis needs to be reevaluated,' what am I going to say to them?"

"What if I came to Chicago?"

"What if?" Stan asked.

"You've never invited me."

"You could have just come."

"Well, I mean, with what money?" Kyle made a put-upon expression, like he was looking for a serious answer. "Sure, my parents would just let me get on some plane by myself, yeah. I would have come, but you never asked me."

"It's a free fucking country, dude, you could have just said, 'I'm coming to visit.' "

"Don't you get it? My parents wouldn't let me go on some delusional jaunt! You would have had to call me up and ask, and talked to my parents, you know, made it like a known thing, totally safe. But you didn't, why would you? You never take fucking initiative. Not for me, _never_. Anyway, maybe I'll be in Chicago soon."

"Okay, fine. Come visit."

"Maybe forever."

"Well," Stan said, "that would be stalking."

"It's a free country," Kyle snapped. "Like you said. I'll go where I want to."

"You just said you couldn't!"

Kyle groaned and picked up a pillow and smashed his face into it.

"Dude." Stan lifted Kyle's head, so as not to startle him, trying to smile as well as he could, the way he remembered smiling when he was 8 years old, bright and genuine. "Kyle."

Kyle sniffed back his tears, biting his lip.

Stan thought back to something Ike had said the day before, on the telephone. "I'm not good on being there for you," he said. "You're right. I'm sorry." Stan waited for Kyle to say something. When it didn't come, Stan continued: "But it's not fair to say I don't take any initiative. Because, well, I did take the initiative, this time."

"What, how?" Kyle asked, wiping at his nose. "You mean, by coming over here today and fucking around with my head?"

"No, I mean." Stan's voice grew very soft. "I mean, I came home for Christmas. Because, um. I wanted to tell you I loved you."

"Loved. Like." Kyle rubbed at his eyes, both at one time. "In the past tense?"

"No."

Kyle took a deep breath, and turned toward the wall.

"Dude. Look, Kyle. I — fuck. _I__want__to__be__with__you_. I've never wanted anything more in my life."

"That's a lie. _Bullshit_. There's clearly one thing you wanted more, and it was getting out of South Park. And you did." Kyle paused. When Stan didn't reply, he said, "Congratulations."

Stan wanted to say, "But I couldn't help it," or, "And my life there is so great without you?" But Stan knew that he could help it, and he loved his life at Northwestern, held it so deep inside of him that it tore at the part of him that still called South Park home. Stan didn't want to lie, so he couldn't speak, could only stare at Kyle, at the way Kyle was using his index fingers to dig underneath the cuticles of his thumbs.

"Congratulations," Kyle repeated, when Stan said nothing. "And anyway," he continued. He seemed calm again, although his eyes were still swollen and there were tear tracks on his cheeks. "I'll be with you soon."

"What does that mean?" Stan asked. "You want to, like, what, be with me?"

"Let's just not discuss it."

"You're the one who wanted to discuss things."

"I don't know what I want! I don't know who I am! I just know we can't, okay. _I__don__'__t__know__what__I__want_."

Stan got off the bed, rolling his eyes. "That's right," he said, wiping his nose. He felt unsteady on his feet, wary of little wayward Lego pieces. "I forgot you have a fucking excuse for everything. I never get a fucking chance, and you have an excuse for everything." And Stan bolted from the room.

Kyle followed him down the stairs, yelling, "Come back here, you giant douche!" But Stan had already slammed out the door, living Kyle in the living room, twisting around the find his mother, and Ike.

"When did you get home?" Kyle asked.

Ike turned away, wiping kohl from his cheeks.

"Kyle." His mother patted the sofa, the cushion beside her. "Come sit."

He shook his head. "Fuck, no."

"We should talk—"

"About what?"

"Your brother," his mother started to say.

Ike interrupted. His voice was strained. "Nothing you don't already know. And nothing exciting, I promise."

"Great." Kyle grabbed the keys to his mother's station wagon from a hook by the front door. "Uh, that's cool, guys, um—" And he was out the door, underdressed for late December.

Stan was squatting, literally, at the corner where he'd turn to get home. "So you chased after me," he said, his teeth chattering.

"Listen," said Kyle. He almost made a point of pulling Stan up, but then he squatted down beside him. "We're not going to resolve this on the street corner. I just don't think you understand the full weight of what you want, what the implications of a relationship with me are. Or, or, actually — maybe you do, maybe that's why you keep running away from it."

"I don't run away, I never _ran__away_—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, dude, you literally just got up and ran out of my house without your fucking coat."

"Fine," said Stan. "Point taken."

They went to go sit in the car, the heater blasting. "She won't hear us in here," Kyle said.

"That again?"

Kyle ignored it. "I need to explain something to you. And I need you to not accuse me of being retarded if I, like, burst into tears for the ninth time in 30 minutes. It's not easy for me, this composure, being the grown up, okay. But, I think maybe it's a defense mechanism, how you avoid me. Because you know it would be bad, don't you? If we were together?" He paused, again waiting for Stan to reply. "Well, think about it. I can't work. I can barely be left alone. You'd have to support me. You'd be responsible for making sure I didn't kill myself. You'd have to medicate me. You'd have to deal with my parents. We couldn't have sex, because it's just not something I enjoy, and I only do it to hurt myself when I'm feeling manic. And when it happens, it's outside of my control, with everyone. I do have moments of lucidity. Like this one. Then again, I've been up and down on depressants lately. Do you have some money on you?"

"What?" Stan lifted his head from the window, where his breath had left a little spot of condensation.

"I thought we would go get some provisions," Kyle said. "You know. For New Year's."

"Like, what kind of provisions?"

"The usual kind."

Stan nodded, slowly. "Yeah, I have money. My parents' credit card—"

"Great."

Kyle slid the car into reverse, and they drove off.

XXX

There was a liquor store on Main Street; Kyle took them to one a bit out of town, in Bailey. It was far enough away that they had been able to buy beer there in high school with fake IDs.

"Should you really be driving?" Stan asked, getting out of the car. He wasn't going to say anything, it was pointless, they were already there, but then Stan remembered that Kyle's parents found him trustworthy and reliable.

"I don't know." Kyle slammed the car door shut. He wasn't wearing a proper parka, just a sweatshirt, and he jogged into the store. Stan followed, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

In front of the coolers, Stan pressed his hands to the glass. There was nothing remotely good or, even better, ironic and disaffected for sale. "What do we want?" he asked, but when he turned to look at Kyle, Stan found Kyle wasn't there. Pulling a case of Natty Light from the cold, Stan slammed the door and wandered past the liqueurs, up and down aisles of soda and bottles of pre-mixed drinks in every color, yellow for pina coladas and candy red for daiquiris, brown sludge for something else, Stan didn't know what that was.

Kyle was in front of the sparkling wines, contemplating a black bottle.

"Do you like cava?" he asked. He didn't turn to talk to Stan.

"At brunch, maybe."

"Well, it's New Year's, so." Kyle tucked the bottle under his arm. He finally spun around, on his heels, and looked Stan in the eyes. "Sorry, you'll have to pay for this. But, it's cheap."

They picked out more champagne, and then went to look at bourbon, Kyle shaking his phone from his pocket. Stan was scanning the label of a bottle of Evan Williams when Kyle said, "Oh, don't bother." He snapped his phone shut. "Kenny's got provisions already. Not of the liquid kind."

"Fine." Stan put the bourbon back on the shelf. "Do you think this is enough?" They had one case of beer, three bottles of Freixinet, and three of Domaine Ste. Michelle.

"Maybe more than enough." Kyle shrugged. "But I self-medicate, so don't ask me. Are you okay with this plan?"

"What plan?"

Kyle rolled his eyes. "Meeting at Butters', at 9. Didn't Kenny text you?"

Stan shook his head.

"Fine, regardless." Kyle dragged Stan to the register, pulling his sunglasses from the pocket of his sweatshirt before facing the clerk. "Sorry I can't help you pay," he said, as they were rung up.

"Whatever," said Stan. "It's all right, it's not like I wouldn't be buying it anyway."

"But we should split these things."

"If you can't work and you need me to take care of you," Stan said, not minding if some drop-out kid working at a liquor store in Bailey heard him, "then $40 of cheap shit on New Year's has got to be the least of my problems."

"So it's all right, then?"

"Why shouldn't it be?"

Kyle shook his head.

Stan drove back, wresting the keys from Kyle with little difficulty.

"I should get wasted tonight." Stan drove slowly down 285, not wanting his brief trip out of town with Kyle to end. The light was dimming, receding as the road sunk into the valley, and there were few cars to honk at them. Stan wanted to park and look over a ledge by the side of the highway, at the sun setting over Fairplay, South Park, and then Grand Junction, San Francisco, and the Pacific Ocean. Stan felt very small up here, suddenly, like he never had before. But he didn't stop the car, because that wouldn't be very responsible. It was a long way to the bottoms of these ravines.

"Sure." Kyle's feet were on the dashboard, his hands in his armpits, no seatbelt. "I don't think I will, though. Too much — too much, lately."

Sheila's station wagon had exuberant acceleration, and stiff brakes.

"Stan." Kyle sat up, legs back on the ground, where they should be. "I hope you understand, there's no cure."

"No sure for what?" Stan's foot grew heavier on the gas pedal.

"Mental illness. You can manage it, you know, you can try — but it's not like there's any fix. Or. Like, redemption."

It took Stan a moment, but he said, "I understand."

Now they were going the speed limit, signs for eighth-mile markers flashing by.


	14. Chapter 14

Sorry for the wait between updates! This is the final chapter.

ETA: Nhaingen made me move this to the beginning:

So, yes, that's it. Thank you for reading, and of course, I'm open to constructive criticism. If anyone happens to be wondering, I started writing this story in April 2008, so I'm slow, but I will finish everything, I promise. Anyway, I have one huuuuge WTF project I am working on, and then I will get back to RIAT.

* * *

There was confusion back at Kyle's, between turmoil from the Broflovski family as to who would be allowed to go where to ring in the new year, and a general mood of low morale from Kyle's parents, who had no plans other than to go to Mr. Mackey's for a champagne toast around 11 p.m. After coming into the house Kyle rushed upstairs, leaving Stan to deal with Sheila Broflovski as she caught him with bags of champagne and a case of beer in his arms. He struggled to keep everything upright as she pestered him.: "Will we see your parents tonight?"

"See them where?" Stan asked.

She patted his shoulder, glancing at his bags. "I hope you're not planning on drinking and driving."

Stan considered saying, "Well, no, that's not something I ever _plan_ on doing, it just happens, when it happens, in fact it's more from a lack of planning than anything else." As she glared at him, her lips pursed, he shrugged and said, "No."

Stan stood there waiting for her to accuse him of the misdeed he was certain Ike had confessed or, even worse, she'd just happened, with her mother's intuition, to intuit. But she just patted him on the shoulder again and said, "Good. I hope you'll look after Kyle tonight. Where are you boys headed?"

"I don't really know." Stan had to shift his weight to maintain his grip on the case of beer cans, which clanked as he trembled. "Ah, I think we have to discuss it—"

"Well, make sure he eats, will you?"

"Yeah."

"And that he takes the right meds at the right times — I can give you a list. Do you want me to stick it to the fridge?"

"Ah — yes, of course, that'd be okay…"

"And he can't go out without a jacket! It literally is freezing outside, I can't bear to think of him walking around in that ratty sweatshirt thing."

"I always do my best." Stan hoped this didn't seem like a promise. It was true that he always did his best. It just happened at times that his best felt inadequate.

"Just — take care of him, all right? I hate to make you feel like a babysitter, but, please take care of him."

"All right," Stan agreed. "I will! I promise."

He made good on that promise by taking care of Kyle sexually, or trying to, at least, kissing deep and slow on Kyle's bed, their two bodies fit together in a way that allowed Stan to press his weight into the softness of Kyle's dick. At first Stan was unconcerned, figuring it would harden in time, concentrating on feeling every inch of Kyle's body under his clothes. Much of Kyle's skin was rough like a section of a leather couch that had been sat on too often for too long, and as 20 and then 30 minutes passed, Stan became alarmed.

Perhaps sensing Stan's concern, Kyle pulled away, wiping his mouth with his shirt. "Did you put the beer in the fridge?" he asked.

"Well, yeah." Stan tried to find a sign of arousal in Kyle's eyes, and to Stan's dismay, it seemed not to be there. "Are you enjoying this?" he asked. He rolled aside in order to reach for Kyle's dick through his pants, giving it a gentle squeeze. While Kyle's body tensed, the actual organ remained unexcited. "What's even the point?" Stan asked, wondering if his own pleasure should be put on hold at this time.

"Well, I can get into kissing," Kyle said, "and … touching, and things, but. Lithium is kind of a boner-killer. Sex is usually fantastic when I go off it, though, like — you know what? Stick around and find out."

"Stick around how?"

"Well, if you're going to go back to Chicago in two days, you might never get a chance."

Stan sat up, watching Kyle tug at the utter calamity that was his hair. "Hey, stop that," Stan said, grasping one of Kyle's hands and pulling it into his lap. Stan held it, stroking it, Kyle's dry and cold little hand, the seams worn where Kyle's flesh met his finger nails, blood lingering in the places where he'd bitten away cuticles. "This is fucked up on levels I can't really interpret right now. Do you want to have sex with me? Because making out with me and giving me a blackmail hand job indicate 'maybe,' but beating me up, telling me you hate me, and your general lack of arousal, those things seem to indicate 'no.' Also, you told me we can't be together, and that you don't even enjoy sex, so…"

"I've never said I hated you."

"Well, don't you?"

"No! My feelings for you are beyond any rational articulation. I think _maybe_ one time, over Thanksgiving, I was able to voice something that approximated how I feel about you to a shrink. But it's like, far from a satisfying measure."

"Well, you're doing that thing where you talk in stupid riddles," said Stan, his heart beating fast. "I'll fuck you if you want, if that's what you're trying to tell me."

This did not make Kyle stop pulling at his hair; it made him tug harder, until he was grimacing.

"Stop." Stan grabbed both of Kyle's wrists. "I'm not going to let you do that."

"Let me? Do what?"

"Hurt yourself! Stop, okay. I can't have a serious conversation with somebody who just wants to hurt themselves."

"This is a serious conversation, you basically ordering me to have sex with you?"

"I'm not ordering." Stan didn't let go, but he loosened his grasp. "I've never had sex with anyone I actually loved. Have you?"

"No," Kyle admitted. "But sex _isn't_ usually fun for me! I told you—"

"Well, we don't have to do it now..."

"Are you coming back?" Kyle asked. "Let go of my fucking hands! Are you coming back after school? I need to know."

"No." Stan swallowed. He let go. "I don't think so. There's nothing here for me, you know?"

Kyle gasped. "What about me, you dumb fuck?"

"Oh. Well, I didn't mean _that_."

"Just go." Kyle turned away and pointed at the door.

"Kyle..." Stan was at a loss. Heart pounding, he climbed off the bed. "I just — why would anyone want to be here? You don't even want to be here!"

"I'm not, like, fucking angry," Kyle said. "For once. I just..." His eyes narrowed He pressed his lips together. "You need to go home and take a shower. You smell like motor oil and jizz."

"I've known some guys who might find that a turn-on."

"Oh, shut up! Not everything is about you."

"No, everything is about you." Stan was shocked to hear himself say that.

"If everything were about me we wouldn't be having this fucking conversation! Because you never would have left me to rot in fucking Colorado! I don't think I'm capable of love anyway."

"That's just stupid."

"Why aren't you leaving!"

"All right!" Stan threw his hands in the air. "All right, fine. I'm leaving." He began to do just that, pulling on his shoes, facing away from Kyle on the bed.

"I'll see you at Kenny's. Wait, no — I can't get to Kenny's. Just, come get me in an hour and we'll figure something out. I don't want to spend the last night of the year sitting in my house."

Stan turned around in the doorway, shoving his left heel into one of his green Chucks. "I want to be with you. I do. But I'm not going to come back to South Park if you won't even, I don't know — you keep saying it's not possible and then when I agree you get pissed. So..."

"So what?"

"Sew buttons!" said Stan. He put a hand over his mouth. "Oh my god, why did I say that?"

"Because you're gay, I guess." Kyle shrugged. He seemed neither amused nor placated, just tired and ornery.

"I love you."

"I'm glad." Kyle sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Come back in an hour."

XXX

It was an easy climb to the roof of Butters' house, owing to the well-placed trellises Mr. Stotch had installed on either side of the front door in a fit of manic home improvement fervor that had swept through the town, and then dissipated, around the time Butters and his friends had been in middle school. The thing was practically welded onto the facade, and when Cartman realized that Butters' roof was the perfect venue from which to catch glimpses of the Fairplay New Year fireworks display, the trellis supported all of their weight easily. It was snowy on the roof, some of the white blanket marked with bird tracks.

"No reindeer tracks, though," Butters said, brushing some snow away with his mittens before he sat down. When no one replied to him, he added, "You know, 'cause of Santa?"

"Butters, god." Cartman had used his boot to kick away a place to sit. "Santa is fake, get over it."

"I feel like I've met him, though," Stan said, suddenly feeling it was the right thing to do, sticking up for Butters.

"That might be the faggiest thing you've said tonight."

"Oh, fuck you," Stan said, giving Cartman a shove.

"Whoa, fellas." Butters held his beer aloft, peering over the edge of the gutter. "Don't horse around up here. It's dangerous."

Kenny had already lit a cigarette, and was now lighting one for Cartman. "So?"

"So, my parents would be awfully anxious knowing we were on the roof at all, let alone shoving each other around!"

"Oh, fuck your parents." Cartman took an initial drag off the cigarette Kenny had handed him.

Butters pursed his lips. "Yeah, well, generally I'd agree, but you can't go falling off the roof, fellas, okay? They get back on January 2. So if anything gets damaged and I have to fix it on New Year's Day, I'm going to be pretty sore about it."

"Sore about it," Cartman mimicked.

"This isn't me being a pushover! I just want to spend my last night at home probably ever not worrying about re-attaching a damn gutter, okay? Gosh."

"But if we fall off the roof and the house isn't damaged, it's cool?" Cigarette in mouth, Kenny reached into one of the pockets of his vest, pulling out a battered Altoids tin.

"That's pretty mature," said Kyle, grasping for the tin.

Kenny pulled it away. "What's mature?"

"If it's _your _kid on someone's roof, you're just gonna be like, that's all right, so long as no one's house sustains damage that needs repairing?"

"If you want a cigarette you'd better stop nagging me like you're channeling your mom."

"I'm not channeling my mom," said Kyle. "I'm _asking_, if when your son or daughter is able to talk back, and wants to climb up on the roof of your, I dunno—"

"Trailer," Cartman suggested.

"Hey!"

"—your _trailer_, do you _really_ think you're going to say, 'Cool, all right, sure, go ahead and climb up on the goddamn roof'?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Kenny shook open the tin, revealing a treasure of four immaculate joints, and a small lighter.

Stan, who had been about to open a beer, planted it into a bank of snow in one of the gutters. "All right," he said. "What time is it?" The five of them were facing the back yard, where the snow had been cleared away for the party less than a week before. But the roofs of the other houses were all topped with snow, frosted like gingerbread houses shellacked with muted primary-color icings. Though in Stan's memory there were more visible stars in the night sky over Park County, he counted the ones he could see. Stan knew nothing about astronomy, could name only one constellation — and he spotted it, Orion's belt. It was dim, but there nonetheless. The sight of it made Stan smile. His smile grew when Kenny handed him the lighter, and then a joint.

"If we're seeing you off in two days," Kenny said, exhaling two lungs full of cigarette smoke, "you may as well do the honors."

Stan rolled the tightly bound thing in his hands. It had been a weird day, a long, hard, weird day, and Stan wondered whether, if he got high, he would see more constellations, or whether if he would be able to coax Kyle into bed, if Kyle were high as well.

"I think this should go to you," Stan said, handing it to Kyle.

"Oh." Kyle put it to his lips.

"Figures," Cartman said.

Ignoring him, Stan lit the joint for Kyle, who inhaled deeply, and reached for Stan's beer in the gutter before he'd exhaled entirely.

"Well," Kyle said, over the hissing of the beer can. He raised it as if he were going to say something. "Okay," was all he managed, slurping the cold beer from the lip of can.

It was cold outside, but they sat there under the light of the waning gibbous moon, not quite full but almost as bright. Kenny texted at length, his fingers flying over keys, pausing only to smoke. Butters took one hit, and Stan suspected, watching Butters' jaw, that he hadn't even inhaled. But he smiled stupidly as he handed the joint back to Kyle, saying, "I'm not a total melvin, am I?"

"Of course not," said Kyle, though Stan could hear in Kyle's voice that yes, Kyle thought Butters was a total melvin; possibly even worse.

Cartman was by far at his most insatiable when high, and he offered no one any of the bag of mini Snickers bars he 'd apparently been stashing in his jacket. He let the wrappers flutter away, into the gutter, and catching a glare from Kyle, he began to ball them — and toss them into the gutter.

"Don't leave those on my roof," Butters said.

"Blow me," said Cartman. "Actually, no, you'd enjoy it too much."

"Right." Butters clapped his mittened hands together. "Well, this is nice!"

No one agreed with him — but no one contradicted, either.

After finishing his bag of Snickers, and stuffing the empty plastic sack into the gutter, Cartman leaned back. "I just realized something."

"What?" Kyle asked.

"I'm … really normal."

For a few moments, they were all silent. Then, predictably, Kyle gasped out, "_What_?"

"I'm really normal, you guys, _really_. Of all the people on this roof, _I'm normal_, and you four assholes are all fucked-up. Why have I never realized this before?"

"Because it's not true, fat ass," Stan said.

"Yeah-huh."

"No."

"Yes, yes it is, you guys. Think about it: Stan, you're a fa — you're gay, and you can't keep it in your pants and you just run away from all of your problems. You're chasing after a career in an industry that doesn't even exist anymore. Kyle here is mentally unstable — no offense, Jew, it's just true."

"None taken."

"Kenny, you got a chick pregnant out of wedlock…"

"I've gotten a few chicks pregnant out of wedlock," Kenny correct. "Trish is just the first who wouldn't take care of it."

"Okay, that's disgusting," Kyle said.

Kenny shrugged. "I'm not proud of it."

"How am I messed up?" Butters asked.

"Excuse me?" Cartman sputtered. "Butters, you're gay."

Butters crossed his arms. "How is being gay messed up?"

"You have sex with men."

"But that doesn't make me messed up! I think I'm nice and balanced, thanks."

"Butters, you don't drink."

"I do so drink! I'm just not comfortable drinking when I feel socially awkward, which to be fair, Eric, is like 60 percent of the time I'm around you!"

"Dude, you're in love with Cartman," Stan said. "That's pretty messed up."

"I ain't in love with Eric! I got a really nice boyfriend, he's in law school, he bought me a puppy I named 'Cassidy' and when I told him I couldn't bring Cassidy home for Christmas he said he'd look after the doggy at his place, and—"

"Sure, okay, Butters, _whatever_. Clearly you are overcompensating." Cartman coughed into his hand. "And then, gentlemen, there's me. I am well-adjusted. I am in my final year of college, I am going to graduate on time…" Cartman counted off on his fingers. "I had sex _with a girl_ by the time I was 19. I am going to get into law school and move to Washington and leave all you assholes behind and be someone, and stuff. I think I did it, you guys."

"Did what?" Kenny asked.

"Cartman." Kyle shook his head. "You are _such_ a fat ass."

"And you're a Jew."

"I guess so." Kyle shrugged.

"What's the fun in being normal, though?" Stan asked, surprised to hear himself say it. He glanced at Kyle, who was grinning at him. It felt genuine, and it had been so long since Kyle had smiled at him, _for him_, that Stan's heart leapt.

"I didn't say it was fun," Cartman replied. "Just that it's surprising."

"So you admit you were some fucked-up little bitch of a kid," Kyle said.

"Hey! Shut up, Jew."

"Oh, he's still a little bitch," Kenny said, looking up from his phone, "crying about his mom's boyfriend."

"Kenny, I was not crying!"

"Metaphorically."

"Whatever, Kenny. You guys are just jealous because I'm so well-adjusted."

"Right," said Kyle, "you're the very picture of well-adjustment."

"Yeah, like I'm gonna take your valuation of emotional stability seriously."

"Maybe because I'm _not_ I have greater insight into who else _isn't_!"

Stan was patting his pockets, and realized that he was, habitually, feeling for a pack of cigarettes.

"Don't fight!" Butters was holding the butt end of the first joint, and Kenny snatched it away. Don't fight on my roof," he said, "I mean it. It's nice up here and — and you're all cheapening it. You're cheapening the moment."

To Stan this was inherently idiotic. "Right, we're cheapening getting high on the roof of a suburban tract home."

"What's wrong with tract housing?" Kenny asked. "I would kill to be able to afford a house like this." He was rolling the stub of pot in his fingers, as if it were a Guatemalan worry doll, absorbing all his frustrations. "It's like, the more a person has, the less they appreciate it."

"That is so incredibly deep," Kyle said.

"Consider the amount of money you owe me I'd like to think you'd at least _fake_ finding my observations deep." From a pocket of his vest, Kenny produced a pack of cigarettes. It was half full, and it crinkled when he passed it to Kyle. "My resolution this year is to stop enabling you. So, consider this a parting gift."

Kyle wasn't sure what to say, and held the pack in his raw, trembling hands, starting at it, until Stan said, "Here," and leaned over, offering to light one. Leaning in, Kyle made a point to exhale in Stan's face.

"My _god_," Cartman groaned. "How is it _only_ 10?"

"I got stuff for s'mores," said Butters, "we could go in and—"

"Fuck no," said Cartman, "I'm not climbing back down again until it's the new year." And that was the end of that discussion.

The butt of Kyle's cigarette landed in the gutter as he tossed it away, making Butters sigh, and Kyle pulled another from the package, the crinkling of the wrapper barely audible under Kenny's texting and Cartman's labored animal breathing. The streets were quiet, and in the bedroom windows visible from Butters' roof, little was discernible. Most houses were festooned with strings of Christmas bulbs, garish colors like ice blue and stop light red, some flickering on programmed timers, some twisted by the breeze.

Pulling off a polyester knit glove, Stan ignited the small BIC lighter that he'd been clenching in anticipation.

"The wind," Kyle said, shifting away. "It's blowing the flame out. Here." He indicated the space in front of him, the yard-length slope of the roof from Kyle's feet to the gutter.

Stan maneuvered his way to Kyle's front, the two of them locking eyes, Kyle's face flush from the wind. Somehow, up in the air like this, Stan had failed to notice that it was cold out. He remembered hearing, before he came home last week, that it was going to be the warmest Christmas break in Park Country in 10 years. Even so, he had talked Kyle into wearing a proper winter coat, a ski jacket with high collar. It made Kyle look especially needy.

"Now, don't fall off the roof," Butter said, clenching his fists inside the pockets of his parka.

"Christ, Butters, I'm not going to fall off the roof." Stan could feel how stable he was in this position, crouching on the treads in worn-down soles. Though gravity was against him, his weight, and his history of football, helped him balance. He had the sense memory of running from opponents, trying to stay upright.

Nodding when his cigarette was lit, Kyle leaned back and breathed a curl of smoke that, because Stan was facing the roof, caught no light and served only to mask Kyle's features for a moment, which were already hidden by the blur of his hair and the collar of his coat. Smoke stungStan's eyes, making them water, just a bit.

"Hey." Kyle reached out to wipe under Stan's lashes with his thumb. "I know."

"Know what?" Stan asked, hoping the other three weren't paying attention to them. He wished Kyle would kiss him.

Sighing, Kyle drew back his leg. For a moment, it seemed to Stan that Kyle was making an invitation, maybe asking Stan to crawl up to Kyle's chest and sit with him, huddled together for warmth. It was disorienting to realize that this was not what Kyle wanted at all, and as Stan lost his balance, there was a surreal quality to the moment.

Stan felt disconnected from himself, from South Park, from everything around him. He was two storeys up, and then he wasn't; he was lying on the hard, cold ground, looking up at the stars in the night sky and at the gutter that hung from Butter's roof. He heard scuffling, and someone with a high voice saying, "Holy shit!" It was Kenny, who was the first to peer down at Stan, his mouth gaping. A cigarette fell from his fingers, and again, he said, "Holy shit, oh my god!"

Staring up at Kenny, Stan wanted to ask, "What's the problem?" But nothing came out of his mouth, shock and adrenaline masking not only the pain growing in his shoulders, in his leg, and in the back of his head, but also his ability to form words, to say anything.

"Are you okay?" Kenny called.

Finding that in fact he could move his fingers, Stan tried to lift his hand, indicating that yes, he was fine, thumbs up. Up above, it sounded as though someone was crying.

Then Cartman peered over the ledge. "Well!" he barked. "That was pretty messed up, Jew."

Finally, Kyle climbed to the ledge and looked over, smirking down at Stan. He matched Stan's thumbs up, the cigarette Stan had lit for Kyle hanging from his mouth. It was apparent that, for once, he had not been crying.

XXX

Stan really did dislike waking in an unfamiliar place, not knowing where he was. When he blinked his eyes open on January 1, he found himself disoriented, at a loss. But then he felt the bite of cheap, sterile sheets in his shoulder blades, and the sting of daylight, which made him squint.

"Kyle?" Stan tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but he felt rubbery and unstable, and flopped back down onto his back, hitting his head against an anemic pillow. "Where—?"

"Don't."

A hand clapped over Stan's mouth.

"Don't even say that. It's kind of sick how cliché it is, and I don't want to hear it. Not unless you want to make me sick. You're at Hell's Pass. Emergency room. You landed on your feet and your left Lisfranc joint is shattered and dislocated, and they think you might need surgery, lots and lots of pins. They told me this because I said I was your sister."

"Where are the rest? Kenny and those guys, where—"

Kyle snorted. "Where do you think? They like you, Stan, but it was New Year's. They weren't about to spend the rest of it in a fucking hospital. Though I think Butters is traumatized for life."

"Oh." Stan blinked. "Kyle, you don't look like my sister."

"Who would know? No one's seen her around here in some time." Kyle would not meet Stan's gaze. "Does it hurt?"

Stan tried to wiggle his toes. He found he couldn't. His whole foot felt heavy, dead. Like a piece of meat, not part of him. "No," he whispered. "I…" His voice cracked. "I can't even feel it." He turned his head. Kyle was slouched in his chair, elbows on his flanks, fingers tented.

"Oh." Kyle sat up straighter. "I'm sorry. I know what that's like."

"How many pain killers am I on?"

"Well. That's an interesting question. _My god_ I need a cigarette. Do you mind?" His hand flew to his pocket.

"Kyle." Stan blinked. "It's a _hospital_."

"Oh, you care?"

"_Kyle_."

Kyle's hand dropped from his pocket. "Whatever, Stan."

"The ones Kenny gave you?"

"Oh, no, I smoked through those hours ago. Ike gave me a pack, too."

Stan screwed his mouth up.

"He's the one who got us to the emergency room, by the way."

"How? He doesn't drive. Kyle, he's 15, as you are so fond of reminding me."

"Well, I just said Ike got us here, not Ike _drove_ us here. Fillmore did. That kid's 16."

"Oh."

"Yep."

"Thank him for me."

Kyle snorted. "I don't talk to Fillmore. The last time I dared speak to him he screamed and jumped six feet into the air. I think he thought I was going to surreptitiously poison his smoothie or something. He's always drinking smoothies, that kid, and giving me the evil eye. Poisoning's not my style, anyhow, and besides, I find him boring as dirt. _Stanley_. I was _so worried_."

Stan's throat felt dry, but he didn't think to ask for water. "You were?"

Kyle nodded slowly. "For a moment, when you passed out, I thought maybe I'd killed you. That would have been kinda scary."

"Killed me? Dude."

"Well, it's fine, you're obviously not dead."

"It feels like my foot is dead. My whole leg, actually."

"Oh, it'll get better. It'll wake up. They'll have to slice it open and pin it back together with little metal daggers and snip all your tendons and sew the incision up like they're trussing a leg of lamb. But medical science is _so brilliant_, dude. They'll just fix you. It's easy."

"Ugh, that doesn't sound easy." Stan realized that he did feel something: nauseated.

"Well." Kyle touched a thin cigarette to his lips. "I've been put back together enough times. Though, not like this. But I imagine you'll need someone to look after you! So it's a good thing I'm moving to Chicago."

It took Stan a delirious moment to catch this. He tried to jerk up in bed, but it wasn't exactly easy. So instead, he just burst out with, "_What_."

"Oh, yes." Kyle fidgeted, shifting his hips, trying to get at something. "Mmm, yes. All right. Here." He pulled a well-worn envelope, folded in half, from his pocket. He proffered it to Stan, who could make out only the maroon typesetting of a return address flanked by a sigil. "Want to read it?"

Stan shook his head. "Not particularly." His eyes ached, or the part of his brain beyond his eyes ached, and his vision was blurred and he felt that reading, even holding a letter, would be too arduous. "Can you just explain it to me?"

"What? Oh." Kyle blushed, and stuffed the enveloped into the pocket of his hoodie. "I've been writing to a professor in the social thought program, and I've made an application. I don't like to be too cocky, you know, but I'm all but assured a place."

"And the letter is to that effect?" Stan asked. This was dizzying information.

"It's a letter from my would-be advisor, yes, saying she'd like to work with me. I can't have a real job, you know. This is the best I can do."

Stan wasn't sure what to say. A feeling of nausea filled his consciousness, rocking back and forth inside his chest. He probably didn't have anything to throw up, as it had been some time since he'd eaten, but all the same, he wanted to be sick.

"You look a bit green," Kyle said, noticing as much. "If you want to puke you can puke into my hands."

"I don't want to puke," said Stan, although he did; he was just certain he couldn't. He couldn't feel anything beyond the dreadful want to purge himself of this room, conversation, awful fucking Christmas break.

"Good." Kyle folded up his legs, so that he was sitting Indian-style in his chair. "If you puked at this I'd be offended."

"Did you seriously push me off a roof?" Stan asked. He was shocked at how hoarse he sounded to himself. He felt unsafe, suddenly, and wished he could get up and run out of the room.

"If you need the kind of surgery I think you need," Kyle continued, "you won't be leaving South Park, or at least Colorado, for a while. I don't know what kind of reconstructive surgery they can do at Hell's Pass, actually. So who knows. Point is, though, I think you're grounded here for a while. But maybe, maybe, when I need to go to graduate school, you'll need to get back there, too, and you can drive with me. Would that be fun? Maybe we can rent a car and you can drive with me. Would you like that?"

Stan tensed. He wanted to say, "No, fuck no, you just pushed me off a roof, you crazy bastard. I'm afraid of you!" But he didn't. Stan turned to look at Kyle, curled up in his hospital armchair. Almost instinctually, Stan said, "Sure, dude, that sounds like fun," and for a moment, it did sound fun, until he realized he couldn't feel his entire left leg.

Kyle shook his head. "Are you really not getting it?"

Of course Stan got it, but he smiled wanly and said, "Not getting what?"

There was a look of horror on Kyle's face, but only for a moment. He seemed to swallow back his discomfort, and took Stan's hand. "Well," he said, "I can't say I didn't warn you."

Stan's hand trembled in Kyle's, and he thought about pulling it away. But he didn't. Stan squeezed Kyle's hand tightly. "In sickness and in health," he said. It was the only thing he could think of. Even as Stan said it, he was aware that it was wrong, that he was on far too much pain medication to make good life decisions.

Kyle had no response, really, except to squeeze back.

- end -

* * *

Thanks again!


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